I have two printers, both USB. One a inkjet with a 6' cable, the other a combination laser copier, scanner and printer that uses a 12' cable.
The printer (or USB port, or both) never liked the additional cable length so the transfer is slow. No problem with the short inkjet printer.

But, recently, the transfer speed to the laser printer has gotten slower. Much slower that it was orginally. There has been no hardware changes. I think I have also noticed a slow down with the inkjet, but not as much.

The USB 2 port is on a nVidea nForce5 MB w/ 2GB of Ram running XP Pro w/sp2 if any of that matters. The only other thing I have on the USB bus is a media card reader (not in use at the time). Nothing else connected.

What I usually print are .pdf pages using FoxIt Reader.

Any other info needed, please ask.

What I usually print are .pdf pages using FoxIt Reader.


Any updates to Foxit recently?

Also, have you cleaned up your temp files, etc? What about looking in the Spool directory for any 'stale' documents?

Laser printer specs?

The multu-function machine is the Panasonic KX-MB271;
http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/shop/Phones-Fax/Fax-Printers/Multifunction-Printers/model.KX-MB271.S_11002_7000000000000005702#tabsection

The FoxIt Reader version I have is V2.3 build 3309;
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm

Temp files are usually close to nill. Ok, silly question; where is the "spool directory"?
Understand, the printer(s) are printing just as fast, it's the time it takes for the data to get there is the issue.

On win XP you will find the spooler

C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS

The print spool directory being full of undeleted jobs is one of the more common causes for that kind of slowdown. Also, a fragmented drive can cause 'spooling' slowdowns.

I checked that folder and it was empty. I defrag on a somewhat regular basis.

Anyway, I used their 'cleaner' utility, found new drivers and installed them. It now appears to be back to the way it orginally was so far.
(Note the emphasis.)