our server is Compaq Proliant Pentium III 1Ghz,256Ram,30Gb HDD and our POS system is compatible with our OS(operation system)its because our POS system is a DOS sofware, our situation here is we have a backoffice, the backoffice are controlling the changing price,inventory Etc. and frontoffice, frontoffice is our cash register computers, more than 50 units times, if all computers are getting busy if there was a sale, they get all hanging up, and slowing down, we have 3com office connect switch dual speed, 3com lan cards 10/100 in all computers,maybe with our POS system?...our units?,our Novell 5.1?... novell 5.1 can handle larger database?

The server seems a little small for the duty it is performing. I have installed a couple of POS systems in hardware stores, but they didn't have the number of entry points (cash drawers) as yours does. I can see why it might hang during busy times with the size server you have. Here are a couple of things I would do to help the system that you have. 1. Force the NIC's to 100/FDuplex if the backbone can handle it. A good majority of the time communication problems can be corrected by doing the force on the NIC's. If a NIC is set to AUTO/AUTO it will some- times not auto negotiate correctly. By forcing the NIC to 100/FDuplex you take this possible problem out of the pictre. 2. Add some more memory to the server. My thought on memory is that you can almost never have enough in a server. 3. Look @ how the memory is being mangaed by the server. To take a quote from one of the White papers I have " One of highly touted features in NetWare is its ability to dynamically allocate resources. While this feature can be advantageous, abuse of it by failing to apply certain logical considerations can have a detrimental impact on Server performance". Just remember in a system like this the HDD is going to be where a lot of the bottleneck is, with the POS database(s) residing on the server. The POS systems I installed were notorious for wanting to make updates to databases in real-time, when it could have been done later in batch processes. Thats why you need to tweak the rest of the system to get as much speed as you can to try and makup for the HDD bottleneck. I hope I haven't muddied the waters even more for you. There are a lot of good Networking guy's on this site. You shouldn't want for information on your problem. Later! Underdog V-Peace-V