Re: Multiple Symbol 8846 Hard Reset/Cold Boot Failures

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Although they may not be under warranty, wouldn't contacting Symbol make
sense?

Paul T.

<paulheskestad@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9c19cde7-3b30-4c0b-8a89-7343cb0e885c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I work in a small, family-run grocery store and have 5 Symbol 8846
pocket pcs. This is one of the units suggested by NCR, who supplied
the POS equipment. I purchased all 5 used, and all appear to function
normally upon booting. I have one unit that functions perfectly. The
other four lock up in a way I have not seen before. The other four
units become completely unresponsive, usually while sitting in the
cradle overnight. They are unresponsive in every way; that is to say
that you cannot turn them on, reset them, or get any sign that they
function what-so-ever. Upon removing the battery momentarily, the
units will reboot cold/hard, as if right out of the box. Upon
rebooting, the units will show main and backup batteries at full, so
it's not from power failure.

I've exhausted everything I can think to look at, although I'm
certainly no expert. Any advice is appreciated. Here's what else I can
think of that may be applicable.

I'm using a Netgear access point. The units are used wirelessly to
scan items, make basic prices changes, monitor terminals, etc. This is
done by one small piece of software which connects to the server;
nothing else or extra is installed on the units. I keep them as simple
and clean as possible (no pics, music, video, logos, internet, extra
programs, etc). When I first got the four problem units, they all
functioned properly for about a week, and I walked in one morning to
find they were all afflicted at the same time. I thought it may have a
been a power surge/lightning strike, but they're plugged into a surge
protector. I rebooted and reinstalled everything, and the problem has
been more and more frequent. After scouring the units, the only
difference I can find is that the four only have 64MB main memory, as
opposed to the 128MB of the one functioning unit. I tried allocating
more memory to programs and away from storage, but this did no good.
Even if this was the problem, I wouldn't think it would cause the
units to lock up in the way that they do. IPL ID and Boot ID are
different too, but I don't know what these are.

Anyone ever heard of a problem like this? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance, all help is appreciated.

Paul


.

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