3880 printing very slow

[User_264089]

<p>I recently upgrade the 2200 Epson I have to the 3880 for many reasons but one was the hope for better B&W prints. I have just begun to print a B&W (using ABW) I converted from a color image in Photoshop (CS5) at an A3 size and the progress bar is moving very, very slowly (at about 25% after 10 minutes) but I have yet to hear the printer do anything other then set the paper for print initially. The image came from a Canon 40D so it is not a terribly large file size. Is this slow print speed normal? I did not set high speed in the driver as I wanted to test that next but maybe that is necessary with this printer. Any feedback would be most welcomed. Thanks</p>

<p>Jon Huggins</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Have you made any other prints, yet, with that printer? Are you using a network connection, or USB connection?<br /><br />I tend to use the 3880 directly on a USB port, and find that it's plenty fast in any of several color scenarios or while using ABW - both on proof-grade stuff, and on ink-sponge fine art paper. So, something doesn't seem right, there.</p>

[User_264089]

<p>Matt,<br>

I am using it directly with a USB connection and the only other print I made was a color print with just plain white paper (11x17) as I use this printer for the few things I print with the work I do. I am printing today as I work and I got busy and forgot about it till now and after about 45 minutes, I think, the progress bar now shows it to be about 80% done and I now see a little message on the status monitor that there are 26 minutes left so clearly there is something wrong.</p>

<p>Jon</p>

[User_264089]

<p>I forgot to mention that simple color print also was very slow but nothing like the B&W I am trying to do now. Jon</p>

[howard_m]

<p>make sure that you're connecting directly to the computer USB port (ie. no hubs and worse, a USB1.1 hub).</p>

<p>I've got my 3800 connected by ethernet and it's quite quick.</p>

[User_264089]

<p>Howard,<br>

Thanks for the response and thanks to Matt as well. Howard I am connected directly to a USB 2.0 port so that is not it and it looks like the issue went away. Oddly I let the first print just run and after an hour and a half the status monitor went away as if done but the print never printed even though the readout said ready the whole time. I sent another print of the same size but set the driver to the "speed" under print quality and it printed as fast as I expected, just a few minutes. I went back to the original picture that I had set on "quality" or 2880x1440 dpi instead of 1440x720 when set on speed and tried to run it again and even with the higher setting it also printed in about the same time. I guess nothing can be concluded here other than it seems to be working now as expected and like so many things with computers, in my life anyway, sometimes stuff just doesn't work for no apparent reason. Thanks again.<br>

Jon</p>

[frank_skomial]

<p>Try also print direct JPG pictures taken from a camera, without any post processing, and see if that is also slow ?<br />Do you have a printing case that is fast ?<br />I would suspect that something may be wrong with your computer system setup or usage. If using Windows, inspect actvie processes and see which one is grabbing most of CPU time. Observe volumes transfered by the processes.<br />Is there any background photo/video indexing software catalogging thousands of photos?<br />Is there any virus protection scan going on?<br>

Run any virus check and removal program.<br>

Disconnect Internet during printing, just for the test<br>

<br />Also inspect what sizes are of files that you print. Your could possibly monitor the print jobs, and see how large the intermediate print files are created by the Epson printer driver.</p>

[User_264089]

<p>Frank,<br>

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Since the first print I have not had a problem so whatever it was seems to have gone away or more likely I did something different I was not aware of so yes I am now printing at a speed I would consider fast and what I had expected. All of your suggestions make sense but I don't believe it is a computer issue as I now have a separate computer for work and play and the only thing running was Photoshop and while a bit old now it is a Dell 650 workstation with all of the RAM it can hold (4) and has the fastest SCSI hard drive available a few years ago. No significant background programs were running as I had thought to check for that. So again I thank you for taking the time and if I have the slow issue develop again I will try a couple of your other suggestions.<br>

Jon</p>