Why is my new Microtek Scanmaker so slow?

Today I installed a Microtek Scanmaker i900 http://www.microtekusa.com/smi900.html

I'm happy with the scan quality, but doing 600 dpi scans from the glass is slow - 1200 dpi takes ages. Are there any tips or tricks to speed it up without sacrificing scan quality?

 

If you're using the microtek scan driver make sure you do not have the digital ICE turned on unless you really need it to be. Also make sure the digital ICE color corection is not checked. The effect is good, but it takes forever for the scanner to perform the action. Even though it's "easy" in the sense that the scanner does the work, I find it a lot faster to do it with photoshop on the computer's CPU then wait many minutes for the scanner to remove some spots of dust, etc.

 

Thanks, but ICE is not checked, and it's still slow.

 

Are you connected via USB or Firewire? If you're connecting the scanmaker i900 via usb, try connecting it via firewire. Even though usb2 in theory should be fast, I find this scanner runs much much faster connected via firewire (1394) on my windows systems, both xp and vista.

 

Thanks! Connecting via firewire is much faster than via usb2 for this microtek scanner! I've heard that firewire is more efficient, but I don't have much firewire gear (printers, other scanner, cardreader, etc. are all usb2.) Is the speed increase particular to this scanner, or is firewire superior in general to usb2?