Slow POS when 2 printers attached to Coms 1 and 2

[ilikebirds12]

So my Aloha POS works fine when only one printer is either attached to com 1 or com 2, but if have a printer attached to each, it slows down the pos on that terminal extremely. Epson u220b and T-88 are the printers. When only either 1 is attached by itself, it' smooth and fast.

Any Ideas?

 

[coorsman]

What POS software are you using and what operating system on the terminals?



Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[ilikebirds12]

It's ALOHA POS and on Windows XP

 

[coorsman]

Windows XP enables First-In-First-Out (FIFO) buffers for each COM port. These buffers tend to interfere with printers using Xon/Xoff flow control, so Aloha POS disables these buffers on all COM ports on all terminals, regardless of the printer type. (In the event of a printer or COM port failure, a printer using Xon/Xoff flow control may be temporally connected to the port in the future.)



To access the FIFO buffer settings, select Start/Settings/Control Panel/System or right click My Computer and select Properties. Select Hardware/Device Manager, and click the plus sign (+) next to Ports to expand it. Select each port one at a time, and select Properties/Port Settings/Advanced. Clear 'Use FIFO buffer'. Repeat for each COM port. The LPT port does not have this option.

Try this.


Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[firescreentech]

Coorsman, I see a lot of your posts... Thanks for helping people out. I have a quick question, My terminals were getting "Exiting - File server error - Check Debout Terminal" So I put everything in Redundancy mode so that things would work - How do I take everything out of redundancy mode when the BOH is fixed? Will it Sync Everything?

 

[coorsman]

In aloha manager - maintenance - file server recovery. Might need to do it 2 or 3 times.


Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[ilikebirds12]

So unfortunately changing the FIFO buffers didn't help. As it still slows down the computer drastically. I'm not sure what would cause the computer to just slow to a crawl when more than 1 com port is used.

 

[coorsman]

What terminals hardware are you using ie - posiflex. radiant 1220 1510 etc. Are the cables and adapters supplied from radiant?

Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[FrmrMicrosTech]

Questions on the way the Epson printers are configured in Aloha.

- When you look at the back office -> Hardware -> printers...do you have them set to OPOS or to Windows printers?
- Do you have the Windows drivers for the Epson printers installed locally on the terminal?

We have a couple of sites where we have seen this with udock terminals with multiple printers installed as OPOS. Solution was to leave 1 printer in OPOS, and installed the Windows drivers for the second printer, then select Windows printer in Aloha BOH -> Hardware -> Printers....

It just seems like OPOS gets overloaded (educated guess)

Hope that helps

 

[ilikebirds12]

Coorsman, They are all aloha provided items except for 1 adapter. We needed to grab a new rj45/serial adapter.

FrmrMiccrosTech, I will certainly check out that printer setting. That sounds like a possible solution. Thanks again

 

[eburks]

Since you are using Epson printers on standard COM ports the best configuration in maintenance, hardware, printers would be EPSON TM-80 for the T-88 and Epson U-200 for the 220b. You don't need Epson OPOS or a Windows driver and any installed could actually be causing you extra problems. That would be the first change I would try.

My Term1 at 2 restaurants drive 2 printers; 1 on com3 and 1 on com4 configured this way. I have even turned off the print spooler service on those terminals (just to see if I could) with no problem. Even at 9600bps they are both plenty fast.

Next you might try changing com2 printer to com3 and test (set it to com3 in aloha printer maintenance, make sure windows com3 configuration in device manager matches com2 settings and swap the cable) and you could test on com4 too and see what happens. You could have some sort of windows IRQ configuration problem.

Has this second printer always been the same printer, if so try a quick swap with another printer to see if anything changes.