mac acting funny when printing

[JHZR2]

Hello,

I have a mac mini, Macos 10.4.11, PPC 1.33GHz. Nothing fancy, just a web browser and email machine mainly, with the ability to do office and photoshop.

Lately it has been acting weird where if I try to print something, the program that I am printing from will immediately freeze. I have to force quit. Opening up the printer from the preferences area, the printer is fine, shows nothing in the queue, and is ready to go. But the program cant print, immediately gets a pinwheel, and freezes the program.

The process "Window Server" seems to take a lot of CPU time. Even after force quitting the program and moving on, the computer seems to heat up, as I can hear the fan inside spool up. However, the CPU still goes idle for th most part, its not like something is really jamming up the machine.

I suppose the first step is disk first aid and some method of defragging the disc. But any other ideas? Its getting really annoying, because it is beginning to impede my ability to use the machine.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

JMH

 

[simple_gifts]

I am assuming you are not low on disk space. I have seen 1.4Gb print jobs where I work when then are spooled with a PS driver. Do you think it is size related, do 1 page jobs print?

I would try deleting the printer (queue), deattaching the printer and then reinstalling it, perhaps using a different USB port; Even if it still hangs, it is still worthwhile as a debugging tool.

FWIW, I have used many Unices (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, SunOS) and Linux and I've never seen a native defragger. It is just not and issue with Unix file systems.

 

[JHZR2]

I cant get to the point where anything coud be setup to print, I go to file-print, and I get the pinwheel before anything shows up. Immediately requires a force quit of whatever the program.

Ran disk first aid and no issues.

Restarted a few times, and now I can get the print menu. We shall see when an issue arises again...

Thanks,

JMH