Restaurant POS XP machine keeps loosing connectivity - need help with firewall

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surfer949

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Apr 4, 2016
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My wife's restaurant has a inherited small network consisting of a POS that is connected to a Netgear FVS318 firewall router. The problem is that the POS Windows XP machine will loose Internet connectivity intermittently (mostly on Friday's).
One thing that used to resolve the issue was to (from the POS machine with static IP) perform a "ping www.yahoo.com" command. Somehow pinging a site enabled Internet access again. I don't understand how the ping resolved the issue. I'm thinking there is something broken with the Netgear firewall router. Also, power cycling all the components fixed the issue at times.

Here's a description of the small network.
POS machine (Windows XP) ----> Hub----> Netgear firewall ---> AT&T DSL router/ modem
printer for POS connected to Hub
There are other pc's connected to the AT&T DSL router.


 
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jsmithepa

jsmithepa

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Jun 14, 2014
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From the description, sounds like something is going sleep/idle and not waking up automatically.

You are specifically complaining about this XP box. Are you saying other PC are working fine? If so I would check whether XP machine's NIC has DISABLE THIS INTERFACE TO SAVE POWER to off.

Now I don't know if in the restaurant business Friday is a typically a busy day, and whether this Internet connection also services your patrons' mobiles. If yes and yes, maybe the DSL is being saturated and your POS software is unable to handle momentary network congestion.
 
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surfer949

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When the XP machine loses Internet connectivity, all other devices connected to the AT&T wifi are working fine. We do not have patrons on the wifi.
I'll check the POS machine if the NIC has disable. FYI the machine has a static IP address.

- Update-
Someone just got it working again by power cycling and "moving" some cables. At this point I'm thinking to use deductive troubleshooting starting by replacing the firewall router. However, I'm not familiar with this process.
 
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Alabalcho

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While you are on that: THink about what you will do when this POS computer dies. It is not a question of whether, but when.
So, answer yourselves following questions;
- can your POS software run on modern Windows?
- does it need special installation?
- do you have data backup on separate drive / location?
 
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surfer949

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Well it's not a PC perse. The POS is a all in one touch screen machine that is running WinXP ( I think). It has a keyboard and mouse connected to it.
 
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Alabalcho

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Whether you will call it a PC, a POS terminal, or space shuttle - it does not matter. It will break one day.

And the sooner you are prepared for that, the better. If your wife' business depends on it, you're gonna sleep on the couch until you fix / replace / restore it.
 
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jsmithepa

jsmithepa

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He just wants to fix this one thing for his wife and now you want him to open the pandora's box? Smart men fight the battle he CAN win. :D

Plus this POS is probably sold as a package and the vendor made sure he has enough proprietary stuff in there so only he can service the dang thing and sell you a replacement HD for 10x its retail cost.
 
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surfer949

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I call it "very expensive money machine". I got your point Alabalcho but this thing came as a package http://

And yes Smith, the best solution is to buy the new system from First Data:eek:
 
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