Would upgrading RAM in a HP LaserJet printer improve its performance?
Solution 1:
On a HP4050 the First Page Out is rated at 15 second minimum. This number does not count if the printer is in sleep mode before.
Per the service manual
17 pages per minute (ppm)
100 MHz RISC microprocessor
First page out = 15 sec.
Like other told the RAM would help to buffer big document, but the actual warming up of the printer would not get speedier.
For such older printer, make sure the jetdirect support 1000 connection, as I would not be surprised to see a 10mb jetdirect card in it.
For my part I would try to upgrade it as I serviced such printer and they are easy to maintain and take care of.
Solution 2:
I used to have a HP LaserJet 5000 (64MB) with a 10Base-T network card for printing A3 CAD drawings. It took around 2 minutes for the printer to process a single drawing.
I decided to add memory (196MB total). The effect was that the first drawing still took around 2 minutes to process, but I could send many drawings consecutively to the printer and after the first delay, they all come out in short intervals, so I think adding RAM was worth it.
Solution 3:
RAM can help improve the ability to handle complex documents (we don't know what you're printing), but not overall processing time...
However, the 4050N was discontinued 15 years ago in 2001.
Just because you can make this printer be in service this long doesn't mean you should.
There aren't too many good reasons against moving to a more modern variant of the printer, especially with performance issues you've described over the past few years.
There may be other efficiencies in power, performance, features and consumables costs involved in doing so.
Solution 4:
It depends, but probably not by much, most of the first page wait time is on processing the PCL or Postscript. If you see multi-page stalls then RAM would help, but not that first page raster. If the majority of the print is text, and it's Postscript, RAM won't do much at all. For that you need a faster processor.