extremely slow printing - WinXP SP3

When printing multiple copies, my HP Officejet 6500A slows to a crawl.

Printer preferences are set to spool documents and to start printing immediately.

TaskMaster shows MsMpEng.exe sucking down 90+% of the cpu and spool getting 5% or less of the cpu. This always happens whenever I print.

The only way that I can reduce the amount of cpu that MS Security Essentials suck up is by unchecking Monitor file and program activity on your computer under Real-time Protection. Changing the selection from Monitor all files to Monitor only outgoing files has no affect. Obviously, taking this action puts my computer at risk.

What can I do to improve print speed??

I am running WinXP SP3 and am current on all Windows updates.

Thanks.

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