Printer does not print
Last Updated: 5th December, 1994
Symptoms
Spooler reports a printer as off-line or out of paper, or printer
accepts data but never prints. Printer works fine under DOS or
previous version of OS/2.
Hardware
Various printers, including an Oki OL400 (emulating HP LaserJetII),
a real HP LaserJet II, HP PaintJet and PaintJet-XL, a HP Deskjet
Plus, Panasonic models KX-P1124i and KX-P1123, an NEC SilentWriter
2/M90 (PS laser printer), and a Fujitsu 7100PS. Not to mention
Lantastic printer support.
Problem
Under OS/2 2.x, the low-level printer support was interrupt driven,
using IRQ7 for LPT1 and IRQ5 for LPT2. This was good (low
overhead, good throughput) and bad (IRQ conflicts with
SoundBlasters and other adapters, no choice on IRQ used, printer
adapters and cables which worked under DOS might not under OS/2).
Beginning with OS/2 Warp Version 3, the OS/2 Development staff
introduced a "stealth" enhancement: the default low-level printer
support is now handled by periodically "polling" the printer port
to see when it can accept the next character. This is good (allows
a lot of printers, cables, and LPTx adapters to work under OS/2
that might not otherwise) and bad (increased overhead).
User feedback seems to be mixed. Some printers seem to work
acceptably with OS/2 polled printing, some do not.
Fix
You can re-introduce interrupt-driven printer support by editing
your OS/2 CONFIG.SYS file to add a /IRQ to the PRINT01.SYS or
PRINT02.SYS statement. For more information, type HELP BASEDEV at
a command prompt and then do a Search for PRINT01.
Notes
Human nature being what it is, there are more postings describing
printer problems than reports of printers working roperly with the
new polled support. At first I thought it might be related to the
new OMNI driver (another Warp "stealth" feature), but I don't
believe that the HP Laserjets or PostScript printers use the OMNI
driver. If anyone can come up with specific criteria that can
determine whether a given printer or LPT1 adapter will work
properly using Warp's default "polled" printer support, please let
me know.
Although it is nowhere explicitly stated, it appears that there is
still no choice on printer IRQs if you use them. With the /IRQ
parameter in place IRQ7 will be used for LPT1 and IRQ5 for LPT2.
This page is part of Frank McKenney's
Warp Installation Notes,
a major contribution to the
Warp Pharmacy
project.