USB or parallel connection for printer?? Does it really matter?

[snowairg]

I'm having trouble connecting my printer via USB. Just wondering if doing it through the parallel port slows anything down.

Does the faster USB connection actually help?

Thanks.

 

[stso]

I don't feel any difference ... parallel works just fine.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

if you use usb, you can disable the lpt port, free one irq.

 

[Zach]

USB feels faster.. I'd think it is too, with latencies.

 

[Rand]

<< if you use usb, you can disable the lpt port, free one irq. >>



Of course USB itself generally uses an IRQ itself in most (though not all) cases.
And yes it is faster then the parallel port, and has many added benefits, though whether the extra speed is needed by the printer at all will depend much upon the individual printer in question.

 

[bacillus]

I find no difference between the two!

 

[Oda]

No difference it seems. IMHO if it gets to a point where you might find a difference between parallel and USB then you probably have to consider adding RAM to your printer as well.

 

[Shack70]

You may have probs using the USB connection if you are using older DOS based apps to print with, otherwise no difference.

 

[oldfart]

Depends on the printer. My HP 970 will turn my PIII 1G+ 512 meg ram PC into a 286 with 8K ram while printing to the parallel port. I've seen other people with the same complaint. USB port fixes this issue. My Epson didn't exhibit this behavior. HP has some driver work to do I guess.

 

[MulLa]

Yes what oldfart said is quite common. When printing to a parallel printer you often can see dramatic slowdowns to your machine. I am one of them :|

 

[Superself]

Well there is a difference in speed. USB is faster than standard paralell.
Here are the maximum transfer rates of each:
standard paralell - 115kB per sec
USB - 1.5MB per sec

However if your MB and printer support the Enhanced Paralell Port (ECP/EPP) features then the maximum transfer rate could be faster than USB.

ECP/EPP - 3MB per sec

Remember that the printer is really the bottleneck here...once information reaches it, it can only print so fast...unless it has memory which could store the print job. In this case your computer could offload that entire print job to your printer's memory and free your PC up faster.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I've been thinking about a USB printer. For some reason, my dad's box stopped doing two-way communication with his (parallel) printer. I have no idea what is wrong.

 

[Mookow]

At least with my Lexmark Z52, using usb allows "bi-directional communication", which really means I get a nice graphic of my ink cartridge levels. USB also frees up my system faster (though that could be Lexmark's fault w/ the drivers). But using the USB port over the parrallel isnt too much different

 

[crt1530]

Well, since nobody's mentioned this, USB is MUCH MUCH more convenient. You can plug in so many different places(keyboard, hub, front of computer, etc.) and it has no "issues."

 

[Keego]

LPT is so old school, get with the times

lags so much I hate LPT!