Serial to USB Help

[Ford_H8ter]

Hey guys,

I need a little help with our till that we use at work. A problem with our till computer arose, and killed the computer, so we've moved the office computer to the front to use as the till. Problem is the new computer does not have the necessary serial 9-pin connection on it.

I went out and purchased a Serial to USB adapter, and after some fiddling on the till program (auto-star) i thought i had managed to get it to work.

Now every half-hour or so the register stops opening after a purchase. This causes us to have to restart the computer, and sometimes that does not work, so i go and uninstall and reinstall the driver, reboot and all is good to go.

Any ideas as to why this is happening? I check the device manager, it still shows the com port is active, and if i unplug the usb, it disappears on the com port window, and vice-versa. I know it uses a p2303 chipset or something like that, at least thats what it seems to use acording to google?

Im pretty tech savy, but not so much on the programing side of things. any help is appreciated!

[V6-BoI]

What OS is your till running? In my last job when I had Windows 7, and a USB to Serial converter, there always seemed to have driver issues and I'd get blue screens every once in a while.

Maybe try going online and get an updated driver?

[Mar]

Just go buy a PCI serial card, I have one in my machine, works great.

[Ford_H8ter]

Currently running xp, its an older computer, i have jumped online and downloaded the first like 5 or 6 drivers that come up, still nothing. might have to look into a card as mar said.

still open to more ideas though

[Grogador]

Try to find the main or root USB port on the machine, they're more stable and provide more power. In a tower it's usually at the back, the bottom port of a stack of two. Speaking of power, disable any power-saving or stand-by settings for USB.

[revelations]

We have about 6, "KEYSPAN" USB-serial convertors in our office and they have worked great the last few years on various machines and various versions of Windows.

Avail at Memex

[adam c]

dumb question, why not call your POS company for support?

[Ford_H8ter]

adam, long story short, we had a fall out with our local distributor and we are no longer dealing with the company. i basically know this pos software inside out and backwards, but dont understand this issue. i will see what i can strum up at work the next couple days.

once i got home, i thought about simply stealing the pci card from the old computer and using it in the new tower, just a matter of finding the right driver and it "should" work

[takkyu]

Originally posted by revelations
We have about 6, "KEYSPAN" USB-serial convertors in our office and they have worked great the last few years on various machines and various versions of Windows.

Avail at Memex

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX7694

These ones that Rev mentioned, they are hardware based instead of software so they work much better.

[PD77]

These are the ones we use and are pretty reliable:

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX663