Slow Post Script printing on a Network

[Cheryl]

I am trying to help a buddy and I am stumped. Here's the info:
***
Four Macs (model, OS version, printer driver (Apple Laser Writer) version, size of RAM) using drivers from Apple and PPDs from printer manufacturer (HP in this case)

1. G4, MacOS 9.2.2 International English, printer driver Z1-8.7.1, RAM 448 Mb
2. G4, MacOS 9.2.2 International English, printer driver Z1-8.7.1, RAM 512 Mb
3. G3, MacOS 9.2.2 International English, printer driver Z1-8.7.1, RAM 448 Mb
4. G3, MacOS 9.2.2 U.S., printer driver 8.7.1, RAM 512 Mb
HP LaserJet 4050 and HP Color LaserJet 4500 (both PostScript) connected to LAN using Ethernet adapters. Printers are connected to Ethernet switch using built-in LAN adapters (HP JetDirect cards).
Window NT server (4.0 sp6) communicates with printers using TCP/IP protocol and shares them to Macs using built-in service "Print server for Macintosh" Macs uses shared (by NT server) printers using AppleTalk.

How It Goes Now:

10:00: on Mac A application starts generating PostScript. This job is
spooled on the server. Server queue becomes busy for all users of the
printer.

10:01: on Mac B application starts generating PostScript. It takes a minute,
but the sending to the server queue fails because this queue is busy.

10:10: on Mac A generating PostScript and spooling is finished. Job goes to
the server queue. After minute or two (at about 10:12) print job from Mac B
is printed.

What Is Needed:

10:00: on Mac A application starts generating PostScript. This job is
spooled locally without sending to the server. Server queue is still
available.

10:01: on Mac B application starts generating PostScript. It takes a minute.
After that, job from local queue is sent to the server queue for printing.
After a minute or two job from Mac B is printed. NB: Job from Mac A is still
spooled locally without affecting server queue and other users of the
printer.

10:10: on Mac A generating PostScript (and spooling) is finished. Job goes
to the server queue.

The worst thing is that everyone should wait for slow job (if someone started it), even for printing out a couple lines of text.

What they do with those large jobs is to turn on the timer and allow it to print in the late evening.
Any ideas???????

[gsahli]

Are you using the NT server for security or paper use monitoring or something? Otherwise, All the Macs should have peer-to-peer appletalk connection to the JetDirect cards. Then their spooling will be queued locally instead of waiting for the master queue. It is quite possible that the direct method will transfer individual jobs faster, too.

[Cheryl]

Thanks for the response. I am not sure why they have the print jobs going through the NT server.

Let me ask and get back to you.

[Cheryl]

gsahli,

That was it. They changed the print set up to LPR and TCP/IP and everyone is happy. Thanks for the info.