Many people, including myself and Dave Burgess, have had better luck with
the non-interrupt driven driver.  You don't need to change the kernel, just
use /dev/lpaX instead of /dev/lptX.  In the case of my Deskjet it actually
needs the no-reset device as well, which is minor + 64 (or +192 for
polled), my dev entries look like:

	lpt0		16, 0
	lpt0np		16, 64
	lpa0		16, 128
	lpa0np		16, 192

The polling versus interrupt problems seem pretty random, although my 
experience has been that faster devices (than can cycle the parallel
port faster) are more likely to have the problem (an old LaserJet 500 and
Star dot matrix had no problems, an LJ IV and the DJ 550C did have
problems).
--
Mark