There are in fact a fair number of things that will absolutely affect your printing speed....document size, resolution, color usage, your computer, printer, network (if applicable), yadda, yadda, yadda. For example, I've been working on some pieces for my own portfolio, so I'm printing them at a VERY high resolution...the images are formatted for 11 x 17 prints and I'm printing at 300 dpi and yea..even on the high end laser printers I'm using, they're taking as long as 5 to 10 minutes per page.
So that said, without having more info about the file(s) you're trying to print, here's a few things I would check right off the bat....
Layers & shapes - obviously the more layers/shapes you have in a given image, the more Illustrator and your system needs to work to process those. Back in college one of my fellow students had a similar problem as yours...it was taking OVER 45 minutes to print ONE image...turned out the guy had OVER 1000 layers in his image! YIKES!!! In a few cases with my own work, I've actually broken a given project down into "parts"...background, foreground, etc., rasterized them, then "re-assembled" everything in Photoshop...as long as you save backups of the originally Illy files, you can go back later and change things if need be.
If you're using "effects", like blur, drop shadow, gallery, etc., I would HIGHLY recommend you rasterize before trying to print (even though those are technically raster effects to start with). In fact, it might not be a bad idea to just rasterize the whole image (assuming you haven't done this already) - export your artboard out to a jpg, png, tif, etc., instead of trying to print directly from the Illustrator file.
Image Size - If you're printing to, let's say 8 1/2 x 11, make sure you don't have the actual image size jacked up to something REALLY large.
Resolution - Same thing...I usually set things at 300 dpi for prints (as apposed to 72 dpi for internet display), however I have seen an instance or two where somehow, someway, things went REALLY askew and the resolution got knocked up to 800 dpi. Image size and resolution tend to go hand in hand, so do check both!
If...for SOME reason...you're trying to print from an Acrobat file, I would also recommend rasterizing the image FIRST...flatten that puppy out, otherwise Acrobat tries to save ALL the vector info, which gets to be a pita!
If that don't do it for ya, then like another poster said, I'd suggest you post more info on what you're trying to do...if not the actual image/file itself.
I hope this helps - good luck!
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. The printer is connect via ethernet to a server. It can also be reached via wifi but the issue still persists.
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