Restaurant POS XP machine keeps loosing Internet connectivity

[surfer949]

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 one by one 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.

[Ph1b3r0pt1c]

Check the dhcp timeout on leases, not saying this is it, but on some routers I have had to change it to like 3 days. It could also be bad NIC, or bad router.

[Pam14160]

When equipment get old Bit happens. . .

[JustGeorge]

Title cracked me up. XP is so old, even its trying to tell you to upgrade. Either that or its an un-diagnosed case of IP dementia.

 

[Night Prowler]

Plug the PC directly into the modem to rule the other hardware...

[fusi0n]

Since it's a restaurant, good chance the CAT5/6 cable has gone bad from heat\grease. Also, the network port could have grease and crap in there.. 

[surfer949]

1 hour ago, Ph1b3r0pt1c said:

Check the dhcp timeout on leases, not saying this is it, but on some routers I have had to change it to like 3 days. It could also be bad NIC, or bad router.

The POS machine has a static ip assigned does this negate dhcp on the Netgear router?

[surfer949]

1 hour ago, Night Prowler said:

Plug the PC directly into the modem to rule the other hardware...

I could do that for test purposes but I guess the firewall was implemented for security purposes since it's running cc information.

[surfer949]

Thanks for the replies. I'm thinking the only way to resolve this is to start replacing the components one by one, starting with the Netgear router.

[+BudMan MVC]

so your saying these fixes you use to do no longer work?

 

You mention other machines on the network, does their internet access go down too.. Or is it just this one POS machine?

 

Yes if your saying the POS has a static IP on it, then for sure dhcp has nothing to do with.  Its possible that a ping to anything could force a arp for the gateway IP... Lots of things that might be going on if that use to bring the connection back.

 

But it seems that is not working now?  I would suggest when its not working validate that you have access to the routers IP...   From a cmd prompt do a ipconfig /all it will show you what your default gateway is and what your using for dns, etc..  Why don't you post that?  Since you say your behind a router have to assume that IP is rfc1918 and no issues with posting that info..

 

Can you ping the gateway via IP?  Can you ping say 8.8.8.8, can you still resolve stuff like www.neowin.net or www.google.com when you try and ping those names?  Do you get back an IP or some other error?

 

Can you ping the other machines on the network by their IPs?

 

 

[xendrome]

1: Why are you using a hub

2: Why not wire it directly to the router?

[Unobscured Vision]

Could be other machines (like the CC Reader, etc) that need it *right there* on the same subnet, then feed it into the back office for recordkeeping, which then print the orders to the line, waitress station(s), etc. Likely many reasons why it's on a hub.

 

I agree that the first failure point to check would be the CAT5. Over time those degrade in the most stupid ways that would seem to be counter-intuitive. They aren't environment-proof, either. Heat, grease, getting brittle and failing just out of spite, you name it.

 

The other thing to check would be the hardware the POS machine is running itself. Just because it's losing connectivity mostly on Fridays doesn't mean anything special -- those are your "busy days", yes? That means the Network Chipset is overheating due to use. This is a symptom, usually with mainboards using Nvidia chipsets, that the CPU, board, or both are in a pre-failure condition and that they need replacing soon.

 

Bottom line is that you should start making arrangements to get that POS data transferred to something else, and look into getting another machine to handle your sales. Not because it's XP, but because that hardware is beginning to fail.

[+BudMan MVC]

when he says hub, I am pretty sure he means switch   Hubs have not be standard for years and years..  Only time you would currently use an actual hub is when you were wanting a cheap network probe to sniff traffic.  But lets hope your traffic is less than 100mbps..

 

How anyone can point to the POS hardware failing with the amount of info given is just pure and utter guess work..  There is nothing that points to any sort of hardware failure at all as of yet.

 

I would suggest get some actual info before start replacing hardware or moving equipment around to other connections.

 

[Unobscured Vision]

2 minutes ago, BudMan said:

when he says hub, I am pretty sure he means switch   Hubs have not be standard for years and years..  Only time you would currently use an actual hub is when you were wanting a cheap network probe to sniff traffic.  But lets hope your traffic is less than 100mbps..

 

How anyone can point to the POS hardware failing with the amount of info given is just pure and utter guess work..  There is nothing that points to any sort of hardware failure at all as of yet.

 

I would suggest get some actual info before start replacing hardware or moving equipment around to other connections.

 

Because of the symptomology. I've got a lot of experience with this, and recently. I know what I'm doing.

[+BudMan MVC]

So you have a machine that has intermittent internet..  You don't even know if the other machines are also not having internet, have not been checked.  Or if the machine can ping these other machines even..  But sure time to replace the POS machine..

 

You don't even know how old the POS is, for all you know they put it in 2 months ago..

 

From the info given there is no way to make even guess to what the problem is... For all you know their ISP is having issues...

 

Where did the OP state that the machines connected to the router work when this POS was having problems...  How do you know its not the netgear firewall having a problem..  Pointing to the POS to be replaced with the amount of info at hand is just nonsense guess work..

 

He mentions that the POS has a staic iP, but more than likely the netgear just has dhcp on its wan to the adsl network...  Could be something as simple as the netgear is not renewing its lease on its wan connection to the adsl network...  I could go on and on and on with what it MIGHT be from the info given..  But they would all be just pure speculation without any actual info to go on..

 

"those are your "busy days", yes? That means the Network Chipset is overheating due to use. "

 

That is just pure BS speculation... For all you know friday is their slow day of the week, and they did a total of 3 transactions that day..  Your guessing is no better than saying its having issues because mercury is in retrograde... 

 

Same goes for maybe the ports are full of grease, or the cable is failing because of heat??  Who said the POS was in the kitchen or exposed to heat or grease?  For all we know from what is posted this is a raw vegan restaurant where they serve tofu and sliced veggies..

[+John Teacake MVC]

For all we know from what is posted this is a raw vegan restaurant where they serve tofu and sliced veggies... Tenner bet says it's not :-p

[+Warwagon MVC]

 

3 hours ago, Night Prowler said:

Plug the PC directly into the modem to rule the other hardware...

If he does do that, he better make sure his firewall is turned on first!

[+BudMan MVC]

@John Teacake While I am not going to take any such bet on the type of restaurant   That example was a bit out there to be sure.. Just trying to point out that there is clearly not enough info to make speculation like time replace the POS because its hardware is failing..

[+Warwagon MVC]

18 minutes ago, BudMan said:

@John Teacake While I am not going to take any such bet on the type of restaurant   That example was a bit out there to be sure.. Just trying to point out that there is clearly not enough info to make speculation like time replace the POS because its hardware is failing..

Quite a few members here see the word XP and spas out.

[Gone]

4 hours ago, surfer949 said:

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 one by one 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.

I for a moment thought you were saying POS as Piece of ..... not Point of Sale, It made me laugh then I realized it was POS as in register and not well you know .

[+BudMan MVC]

Yup XP and POS I too would jump the other meaning of POS vs Point of Sale

 

There are many XP based POS still out there, I am fairly sure they lost PCI compliance back in 2014..  But who says a standalone restaurant has to meet PCI to do CC transactions? Then again OP never stated they were doing that..

[xendrome]

2 hours ago, BudMan said:

when he says hub, I am pretty sure he means switch   Hubs have not be standard for years and years..  Only time you would currently use an actual hub is when you were wanting a cheap network probe to sniff traffic.  But lets hope your traffic is less than 100mbps..

I dunno, he's using a Windows XP (embedded?) POS terminal, so a HUB isn't out of the question here.

[xendrome]

4 minutes ago, BudMan said:

Yup XP and POS I too would jump the other meaning of POS vs Point of Sale

 

There are many XP based POS still out there, I am fairly sure they lost PCI compliance back in 2014..  But who says a standalone restaurant has to meet PCI to do CC transactions? Then again OP never stated they were doing that..

If they are storing the data or they are listed as the processor of the data/depositing into their own account and not using a 3rd party to process their charges, then they should be compliant

[Unobscured Vision]

Honestly, everyone. I was attempting to be helpful. No reason to blow your stacks at me. Sheesh.

 

Did I not say that it was the hardware that I suspected, and that XP Point Of Sale was not at issue -- and to check the Cat-5 Cable for damage and wear/tear FIRST.

 

The symptoms described threw up a flag because I've had two machines both fail with similar hardware (Nvidia chipsets) and that's exactly the behavior they display when they are about to fail. 

 

The OP can further test this line of thought by allowing the machine to run. If it's indeed the chipset/mainboard that is failing, other peripherals will begin to intermittently fail such as USB, on-board VGA, and eventually the Southbridge itself as a whole. It won't take long for these problems to occur, less than a month depending on degree of use.

 

Seriously, I didn't post in this thread because I wanted to get flamed. I just want to help.

 

But, since we're on the subject -- there's FAR too much flaming going on all around, and I'm SICK TO ####### DEATH OF IT. I compose MYSELF in a respectful manner, and I expect the same in return. SO LIGHTEN THE #### UP, @BudMan. If I'm wrong, I admit I'm wrong, but you took things WAY too far laying into me like that.

[+BudMan MVC]

laying into who??  Stop getting your panties all in a bunch over someone stating that there is not enough info given to tell someone to replace hardware...  JFC is this forum made up of 13 year old girls on their first period or what

 

All I said was there was not enough info and any such advice would be guess work

 

"How anyone can point to the POS hardware failing with the amount of info given is just pure and utter guess work..  There is nothing that points to any sort of hardware failure at all as of yet."

 

When you made claim that you know because of experience I went into example of what information was missing that makes impossible to make such a claim.

 

nic overheating because of it being a busy day for transactions..  Come on - you can't honestly think that the case..  Is that card pumping out full pipe for hours and hours, ok maybe... It sending and receiving the tiny amount of data that is a transaction is just plain nonsense..  Talk about jumping to conclusions with no information at all..

 

WTF... You try and have a conversation and exchange your opinion on a subject and comments made and you get made out to be some asshat...