Printing to network printer SLOW

[ACWingit]

I have a canon i950 printer connected to the following computer:

Win 98 SE
900 mhz AMD Athlon
384 mb RAM

I am trying to print a file from another computer on the network.
That computer is connected via wireless 802.11b.
It is:

XP Home
AMD XP1600 processor
512 MB RAM

When I open the file and click File-> Print... I get the printer selection menu. When I click on the Canon i950 icon it sits there for about 2 minutes and then opens the print window. If I select Properties (i.e. to get to the Canon properties), it's another 2 min delay. In fact, every button I click takes about 2 mins to respond.

Once I finally click OK to send the print to the printer, it can take more than 5 minutes for a small file to begin printing.

What can I do to speed this up? The Canon responds normally when I print from the computer to which it is attached. It's going across the network that's the problem.

Thanks!

 

[corkyg]

That's the nature of wireless - it is simply slow.

 

[ACWingit]

Well I tried the same experiment on a computer which is WIRED as opposed to wireless.

Here's the scenario:

Computer 1: wireless connection. has an HP printer directly connected. (windows xp)
Computer 2: wired connection, Canon printer attached (windows 98se)
Computer 3: Wired connection, no printer attached (windows xp)

From computer 3 I sent a file to both printers and timed the result

The canon printer took 1 full minute before it began the print
The HP printer took 15 seconds

Keep in mind that the HP printer had to go across the WIRELESS connection and yet it was 4 times quicker to respond.

(Note: it is true that printing to the Canon printer thru a wired connection is indeed faster than wireless but that does not seem to be the problem here)

 

[corkyg]

That suggests the problem is in the Canon wireless interface.