Printer pauses

I have a user that has a 1.1Ghz system, 128 Mb RAM, with W98. The user has a canon printer attached to the paralell port and an hp 940 attached to the usb. The HP printer will set doing nothing for up to 1.5 Hours, with the que saying it is printing, and then print documents at the regular speed. I have reloaded all the printer drivers to no avail. I am at a loss as to the direction to look for an answer to make this printer print more rapidly.