Help needed with sage/winxp/network issue.

pablo21

I'll try and keep this brief. Just completed a network setup in a new store. There all new machines running XP pro. All high spec Fujitsu machines. Cat 5 LAn linking all machines through a 12 port Hub. Broadband DSL Gateway. The point of Sale system is Sage Line 50. There is no server so the backend or main body of Sage is on one of the computers designated as the main PC and Sage is setup on each other PC to pull the data from the main one. Now everything is working perfect. Heres the problem. Each Machine is fitted with a Barcode reader/scanner. A basic handheld unit that scans in the barcode of each product to add it too the invoices when being sold at the counter. The scanner at the main machine zips the code in a flash as it should but the other machines take about two to five seconds to transfer the number onto the screen. You can see it adding each number one by one its that slow. I know it needs to pull this code across the network from the main machine but it shouldnt be that slow. All machines run EZ AV and firewall. I've configured the firewall to allow all local traffic. The network is very fast for everything else so this one has me stumped! I hope Ive made the problem clear enough. I'd appreciate any ideas anybody might have. Mods if this is the wrong forum please feel free to move to a more suitable one.
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pablo21

Any ideas? Anybody??

Ripwave

pablo21 wrote:

Any ideas? Anybody??

There's nothing in your description to suggest that there's a networking problem, and if it's a sage problem, it's unlikely that you'll get any help here.

You could try to verify if it's a network problem by copying files between machines, or by running remote desktop between machines. Unless that throws up significant anomalies, you need to talk to people who might know something about Sage.

spongebob

is the barcoding system an add on or was it supplied by sage themselves, I never came across a network issue with line50 itself . are the scanners running on uPnP or some MS crap like that ?

if supplied by sage they have great tech support .

M

pablo21

Its just a plain barcode reader. Nothing to do with Sage.

liamo

Nothing specific comes to mind but here are a few things that I'd try....

Nominate one of the PCs as the Test PC.

Although it's extremely unlikely that all the barcode readers except the main one could be not working properly, have you actually established this? Can you test the BarCode reader on the Test PC without doing a Sage lookup? Perhaps swap the barcode readers on the Main PC and the Test PC to see if you get a different result? I don't expect this to turn up anything but it's a necessary first step.

Switch off the AV and Firewall on both the main PC and the Test PC and see if that makes a difference.

Is it only on the barcode lookup that you are experiencing delays? That is, are you experiencing delays in other areas of Sage that might point to a network problem or is it specific to the barcode lookup?

Finally, you could try installing Ethereal on the Test PC to see at what point the request to the main PC leaves the Test PC and at what point you get an answer.

You may not find a solution from any of the above tests but at least you'll have eliminated a few things and maybe the results will prompt a few more things to test.

Best of luck

Liam

Ripwave

liamo wrote:

Is it only on the barcode lookup that you are experiencing delays? That is, are you experiencing delays in other areas of Sage that might point to a network problem or is it specific to the barcode lookup?

I think that's the key question - is this a barcode problem, or a network problem. if you manually enter a bar code, how long does Sage take to process it? Is there any s/w with the bar code reader than can be used to test it outside the sage system?

Purely as a wild guess, if the bar code readers are connected to the serial port, there might be an IRQ conflict between the ethernet card and the serial port. But I'd be really surprised - I haven't encountered an IRQ conflict problem in years.

Capt'n Midnight

What type of scanners
PS2/ keyboard - check the keyboard delay/repeat
Serial - check baud rate

swap the scanners - we used to have one that used a page of barcodes to set it's config - including a reset..

spongebob

could be ODBC too , have you checked that ?

M