Computing Services Group

Computer Science Printing Policies

Printing services are offered to those who have Computer Science computer accounts. Some restrictions apply to the services based on funding and Departmental policies.

Table of Content

• Recent Changes
• Supported Printing
• Print Queues
• Student Printing
• Student Quotas
• Students receiving incompletes in courses
• Faculty and Staff Printing or Plotting
• Private Queues
• Connecting to the Printers or Plotter
• Setting the poster size
• Checking your account balance
• Viewing Print Queues, Deleting Print Jobs or Pausing Printers
• Problems Occurring with Printing
• Printing when not using a CPSC Windows account

Recent Changes

• Student Printing changed to different server, use SP instead of Printers
  • Printers.cs.tamu.edu no longer conatins student print queues
  • SP.cs.tamu.edu contains all student print queues
• 3rd floor student print queue changed from ps310 to pcl310
• 4th floor student print queue changed from ps414 to pcl414
• 5th floor student print queue changed from ps514d to pcl514d

Supported Printing

• Windows 200X and XP printing for computers in the CPSC windows domain
• Limited support for Windows NT 4.0
• Windows 9X, XP and 200X printing for laptop systems
• Unix printing for Solaris 2.8
• Windows printing for Linux ( SAMBA Client )
• Printers connected via the secure network subnet

Print Queues

When a document is printed, it is not sent directly to a printer, but is sent to a print queue. Documents in a print queue are then sent to a printer. This allows documents to be redirected easily to another printer if one printer is down for servicing or repairs.

Student Printing

Only students enrolled in Computer Science courses may print to PCL210, PCL310, PCL414 or PCL514D queues from either Unix and Windows based computer systems during the semester.

Output for PCL210 queue may be picked up from the appropriate slot find at room 210. Output for queues PS310, PS414 and PS514D may be picked up from the output bin of each printer. Location for these printers in given in the above table.

Students working for any of the Department's professors or administrative centers may have additional access to printers to which they may print.

Unfortunately, students cannot purchase additional quota.

Student Quotas

Our current printing system has variable quotas for each student based on what Computer Science courses in which the student is enrolled. Students not taking any Computer Science courses will not have any printing privileges but may continue to use their computer accounts. Each student may look at their quota via their CSNet account.

The quota amounts given below are cumulative with the courses taken. Example, if CPSC110 and CPSC203, each course having a 1200-page quota allotment, are taken during the same semester, the quota is set to 2400 pages (1200 + 1200).

Quotas are allotted at the weekend before each semester, adjusted as needed throughout the semester, and removed or reset at the weekend before the start of the next semester. Student printing services may not be available the weekend before the start of a new semester to allow for system maintenance and repair.

Students receiving incompletes in courses

Students who receive an incomplete in a course will be allotted their remaining quota balance from the previous semester. This is done only at the student's request.

Faculty and Staff Printing or Plotting

Faculty and Staff can print to Ps2_color, Ps3, PS4, Ps5, PCL916 and Plotter210. Ps3 is located in room 310 of the H.R. Bright Building where the mailboxes are located. Ps4 is located behind the double-doors at the southwest corner of the 4th floor of the H.R. Bright Building. Ps5 is located in room 514d of the H.R. Bright Building. Pcl916 is located in room 916 of the H. Vance Petroleum Engineering Building. Ps3, Ps4, Ps5 and PCL916 require you to pick up your own printouts.

Ps2_color and Plotter210 are located in room 210 of the H.R. Bright Building. Posters and printouts will be kept behind the Helpdesk. Posters and large diagrams will be hung on the back wall to await pickup. When you pick up your poster or diagram, the print operator will record who printed the poster, for whom (committee,group or faculty member, ect.) the poster was printed, and the date printed.

The CSG/Helpdesk print operator will maintain these printers and plotter, which includes the inserting or exchanging of consumable items such as paper, toner and fusers.

Private Queues

Queues for network-accessible printers are provided for various groups within the department. A network-accessible printer is one which physical attaches to the departmental Ethernet network or uses a print server device (not a computer system), manageable by the HP Web JetAdmin program and functions of the Departmental printer subnet.

These queues are restricted in use as specified by the owner of the printer and will be administered by the CSG as well as the owner. The owners will maintain their printers and the CSG will facilitate repairs for these printers.

Connecting to the Printers or Plotter

This section does not contain printer usage for the Unix systems deployed by the department. Unix information may be made available at a later date.

Here is one of many ways to configure your Windows account to print to any of the student queues:

1. logon to one of the Computer Science Windows workstations which has internet access,
2. click on the Start button found on the task bar
3. select Run from the Start menu
4. in the Run dialog box enter \\sp\pcl210 for connecting to PCL210**
5. press the OK button
6. If asked, "Do you want Windows to set up the printer and continue this operation?", click Yes

**Here is a listing of print servers and queues from which to choose and the information you enter in the name dialog box (letter case is ignored by the system).

Setting the poster size

This content is currently being updated and should be fully displayed 1/31/08.

Checking your account balance

This process is being revised and more information will be available 1/18/08.

Viewing Print Queues, Deleting Print Jobs or Pausing Printers

A student may look at a printer's queue status from a Windows workstation by following these steps:

1. logon to one of the Computer Science Windows workstations which has internet access,
   
2. click on the Start button found on the task bar,
   
3. select Settings from the Start menu,
   
4. select printers from the Settings menu,
   
5. double-click on the printer of your choice shown in the Printers windows,
   
6. a window named after the printer's queue appears and displays queue information
   

The queue information shown is document name, status, owner, size and submission time. Using this information, documents can easily be located; IF it is still in the queue and not already printed or sent to another print server! To cancel a document, right-click the document and choose Cancel from the content menu. This will delete the document unless it has already started printing.

A person can only delete their own documents, not another person's document. CSG Administrators and the Helpdesk personnel can delete another person's document if owner of the document asks for it to be done or if the document causes a disruption to printing services. A good example of a disruptive document is one which causes a delay in printing for more than 10 minutes. These jobs tend to be noticed around closing time and the Helpdesk is very able at deleting these documents.

Printers can be paused at times but is not normal. Pausing can be done from the Printers windows created by going to the Start Menu->Settings->Printers. Right-click on the printer to be pause and select pause printing from the content menu which appears. To unpause printing, following the same step but this time the check mark by pause printing should disappear. Helpdesk personnel can pause queues on printers. The typical user CAN NOT PAUSE a printer on one of the print servers!

Problems Occurring with Printing

Sometimes more serious problems occur with printing. When this happen contact the Helpdesk and they in turn will make the Windows personnel aware of the problem. Examples of current or reoccurring problems and their solution:

• queue may be trying to print a job which refusing to be deleted and which is making no progress towards completion, have the helpdesk inform Windows personnel immediately
• gibberish is printed, please show document to helpdesk and give them banner page of the document to submit to the Windows personnel for the problem to be investigated
• quality of the document is poor due to the production quality of the printing, give the document (especially its banner page) to the helpdesk to submit to the Windows personnel to have your account compensated

Printing when not using a CPSC Windows account

There are several methods of connecting to our network; unfortunately, computers which do not have a wired connection within Computer Science portion of the H.R. Bright building can not print unless using a departmental VPN connection.

If your computer has a wired connection within the H.R. Bright building, and the computer you are using is not a Windows system within the CPSC windows domain, you can still print.

For systems using Samba, refer to the Samba documentation. The workgroup used by samba will be CPSC.

For Windows 2000, run net use printers * /user:cpsc"your username", then add the desired printer. At any later logon, run net use printers * /user:cpsc"your username" again to connect with the print server, but you need not add the printer again.

For Windows XP, run printers and Windows will prompt you for your CPSC account name and password. Enter CPSC for your username, substituting your Windows account user name appropriately.

Revised 1/14/2008 by Dave Cote (dave@cs.tamu.edu)
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