Plot jobs going to wrong printer?

I have a client who wanted their HP 430 plotter shared on the network. We added a Netgear print server to it, gave it a static IP, and added the plotter to each workstation by IP. They are using AutoCad 2002, and we can plot to the 430 fine by selecting the IP Port under the configuration for that pc3 file. We do get the message about the port being in use by a system printer already, and that it would run the job through the print spooler first, but it comes out alright.

Now we added a Sharp AR-275 network printer to each workstation, which has a built in print server with a static IP set. Now on 2 of the Windows XP workstations, even though we are specifying that the plot job should use the IP Port for the HP 430, the plot jobs are being sent to the Sharp laser printer. I'm guessing this is related to that HDI message I mentioned above that pops up whenever a job is sent to the plotter. I remember it saying something about how it would choose a driver that appears compatible or something similar to that.

Is there anything I can do to override that and force the jobs to be sent to the correct printer? If you need more info please let me know and I'll fill you in the best I can. I've never worked with AutoCad before so I'm learning as I go. Thanks

 

How familiar are you with networking and sharing printers?

 

I'm pretty familiar with it.

 

Can't promise that this will help.

What I do is give each printer a unique share name. Then I create a virtual port for each one (I use the command prompt to do this) by typing:

"net use lpt1 \\hostname\printername /persistent:yes"

where hostname is the network name of the computer you wish to print from and printername is the printer you wish to print to. This works for me, and it allows me to bypass any print servers.

I have seen a problem similar to what you describe, and what was causing it was that the printers had the same virtual port. So the plot/print would come out okay on one of the printers but would spew out a bunch of nonsense on the other. It did this consistently, also.

Is your problem random or consistent?

 

It's very consistant. With the Sharp installed, the plot jobs always go to it, even though for the port we are specifiying the IP of the print server on the plotter. As soon as we delete the Sharp printer, the jobs go to the plotter like they should.

Thanks for the ideas, I'll give that a shot.