At 12:34 AM 08/18/2000 , you wrote:
>Recently I was privy to help assist a technician with a major install of a network for a
>medical centre.
>
>Each Doctor had their own PC and a Canon 4650 Printer - set for printing A5 Scripts. Now
>"some" of the machines, not all, are locking up when a script is sent to the printer
>forcing the practitioner to reboot the PC. Once the PC restarts it recovers what was
>spooled and prints the script.
>
>The machines are PIII's (Compaq) running Windows '98 SE. They are networked, but as I
>said the affected machines have their own printers.
>
>Incidentally the print drivers that came with the printers appear to be the latest.
>
>Any clues as to how to rectify this would be appreciated.

Networking is often more a question of the quality of the connection
than anything else, especially with 100Mb networks.  But there are
at least two issues that come to mind...

One is the printer drivers on the problem PCs could be corrupted.
Try removing and reinstalling the printer drivers.   Also, be sure
that the network card is not sharing an IRQ.  The card should
be assigned IRQ 10 or 11 for best performance.  It may take
a herculean effort to free up the IRQ, especially in Windows98Se.

Another thought is that most printer drivers today are bi-directional.
If you contact the printer manufacturer, they often have uni-directional
drivers that can be used instead.  Removing the feedback from the
printer to the PC can also solve this issue, in some cases.

My last thought is the cable or cable connections to the problem
PCs or into the hub / switch between them and your print server.  Try
using a different cable, possibly from a system that is not experiencing
this problem.  You might also try using different ports on the hub or
switch, depending on your network.  You might also check the hubs
or switches for compatibility with your network cards.  Not all
components work well together...


    Bob Wright
The NOSPIN Group

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