Corrupted printing from print server.

[Rabbit]

Here's my question. Does my connecting to the printer by IP affect the print server? The circumstances surrounding this question follows below.

We have 16 network printers, most of them HP 4250n's, on a new print server that have intermittent corrupted prints. Every so often, a user will have a document that prints up to a certain point and the rest comes out garbled. And it does it on every printer and switching computers doesn't help.

The print server uses the PCL 5e drivers. If I install the printer by IP rather than through the print server and use PCL 5e or PCL 6 drivers, it works fine.

Here's the rub. We can't access our print server. Only our deparment IT unit can touch anything server related. The other problem is they are 30 minutes away so they do most things remotely. They reinstalled every printer on the print server using the PCL 5e drivers but that didn't work. They switched over to PCL 6 and that fixed the corrupted printing.

They said that part of the problem was because I connected to the printers directly through the IP rather than through the print server and that whenever I do that, it pushes the drivers I use to the print server which allows for more corruption. However, the problem existed before I ever connected to the printer by IP. I did so only because we had time sensitive documents to get out.

[sicarie]

I'm sorry, Rabbit. I was not posting in hopes that someone would be able to speak to the problem, but printers are not my strong suite by any means, and I have no idea about your issue. My only suggestion would be to ask the manufacturer if there is a known issue with this.

Sorry!

[electromania]

No if you connect to the printer via ip or name it should be fine, but if ur able to connect to the printer via ip without using the server name then there is some serious issues with your network. The problem with the stuffed up printing was the drivers so that fixed the problem.

If the printer is connect to the network and shared on the server and only users in the admin group should be able to add printer to the users accounts then I dont see how you can connect dirrectly to the printer via IP without using the //servername/IP or //servername/printername

[NeoPa]

Printing directly to the printer essentially bypasses the printer server. It puts extra pressure on the printers as they have to manage more of the queueing. It also means that the work done to configure the printer server to manage the queues is bypassed - what's the point of having a queueing system if people bypass it when it suits them. Management when issues occur is also impossible (at least a lot more complicated) as queueing is managed in multiple places.

[NeoPa]

@electromania
It's hard to understand what point you're trying to make here. Perhaps if I pointed out that IP printing is not a service provided by any server (An IP type port is created and printing is done to that port (similar to LPT1 or COM1)) that may clarify things somewhat.

The server would typically use such a port to provide the printer share (\\Server\PrinterShare).