Demanding Printer

[EdP]

My HP 722C parallel printer brings my system to its knees when it's working. According to Process Explorer, it uses virtually all of the CPU.

My system:
Dell XPS8200; Pentium P4 2.4GHz, 1GB RDRAM
When it had 512MB memory, I set the page file to about 340MB. Since I increased the memory to 1GB, I turned virtual memory off. The printer hogged the system under both scenarios.

Incidentally ...
I checked Device Manager to see what I could learn, and found a yellow question mark under Other Devices-Parallel Device, although the ECP Printer Port (LPT 1) appears to be okay. The latest driver for this printer is dated 2001 and the HP web page reported that the driver was not downloadable because XP already has the driver for this printer. I deleted the printer and reinstalled it - no difference.

It would be nice if I could do something else while the printer is working. Is it possible to adjust something to make this so?

Thanks
EdP

[ski]

Is a spooling option selected in the printer's Properties/Details/Spool Settings, specifically "Start printing after the last page is spooled"?

[glc]

Re-enable virtual memory - and either let Windows manage it or make the pagefile about 1gb. That printer sucks up spool space big time.

[EdP]

Thanks, ski and glc, for responding

ski ...
>Is a spooling option selected in the printer's Properties/Details/Spool Settings, specifically "Start printing after the last page is spooled"?<

Yes and no. Spooling was selected, but "Start printing immediately" was checked not "Start printing after the last page is spooled". I switched it to the "... after last page ..." option and tested it, but it didn't seem to make a difference. I would have to maintain that option for a few days to be sure. I also tried "Print directly to printer", but it still chews up the CPU.

glc ...
>Re-enable virtual memory<

One of the reasons I upgraded the memory is so I could eliminate the paging file for security reasons*. Is there a way to allocate spool space? It seems that I did that once, either on this PC or another, but I can't recall the details.

*Yes, I know the paging file can be wiped at shutdown, but not securely enough and it takes too long.

Thanks,
EdP