Chris,
If I take your question literally, that Q image is showing less than 10% CPU usage while printing, that would be normal.
Qimage has nothing to do at all after the processing is done and the file is sent to the spooler. The CPU drops off to almost nothing especially while the printer is printing.
The computer is running the show, and feeds data to the printer as fast as the printer can use it.

Fred

Hi Chris,
I really don't know how I could tell how many cores/threads were being used at any given moment except for timing.
First of all, see my attached screen snap and see if you have your multi cores turned on in Qimage.
If not, turn them on...
If they are alrady turned on, time how long it takes to complete the processing.
Then set it to 1 core, and time it again.
See what you get.

Fred

Qimage recognises 12 cores on start up screen.
I've tried all the setting on the print processing screen and done test and they all take the same time (task manager indicates activity on one core only)
I a mentioned previously task manager also shows that all 12 cores should be used for qimage (affinity settings)

Yes I'm starting it from the desktop shortcut, I'll delete/reinstall it as soon as I get back to the trailer.  I'm trying to come up with things to try when I get back, my wife is pulling her hair out as she is having to do all the printing while I lounge around in a field taking the photos :-)

Knowing that QU is running 8 threads, we're down to the system/OS not assigning them properly.  The only other thing I can think of is going to MSCONFIG and the boot options, advanced, and making sure "Number of Processors" is NOT checked.  Might want to check multi-core options in your BIOS as well.  Also, try running another CPU intensive app like a video editor to produce a video, or maybe a video converter.  Since all multi-threaded apps work basically the same way (by just spawning multiple threads), if other apps are using multiple cores and QU is not, then something is is making app specific settings to set QU to one core specifically.  At that point, you need to look at app/shortcut settings or consider the possibility that something like an antivirus program is interfering.  Since you've checked affinity and found all CPU's checked, I'm leaning toward the probability that all apps on your system are limited to a single core.

Mike

You should probably run another multi-threading test in QU too.  Go into a folder with a bunch of images (say 25 or more, preferably raw photos), and use "View", 'Rebuild Thumbs".  See if more than one core is being used while it is building thumbs and the problem is confined just to the printing part.

Mike

OK update, tried printing to a different printer (12x8 dye sub and CPU usage is higher (up to 37% usage with multiple cores, though one core appears to be doing most of the work) but when I set interpolation to OFF it reverts to only using 1 CPU core (this is the setting that I've been using on the other printer (6*8 dye sub) as it was always the fastest in qimage studio).....
I've now tried this in the original printer and the same thing happens (CPU peaks momentarily at 24%).
Core 6 seems to be doing the majority of the work and interestingly when editing an image with qimage this is the only core that appears to be used (I've tested using the rotate function as this always slowed my old computer down). Is qimage meant to use multiple cores when editing images??

Edit..when printing to file qimage is again using about 9% CPU (1 core is showing usage)

Thanks again for the help