G
Guest
Hi,
I have literally run out of options here of things to try. I would love any
ideas. I look after a small office, 4 pcs and one laptop. All fairly new fast
machines, peer to peer, all running XP pro. We connect via a Linksys
router/adsl modem with three of the machines and one pc and the laptop are
wireless. Everything is stored on one of the pcs as a server. We all access
our Outlook pst files via the server and that file is backed up online daily
along with our files. I know MS does not support network pst files but we
need to be able to swap workstations for reasons I won't go into and this is
the only solution we found besides installing a server which we can't afford.
We swap desks a lot so every machine is configured with everyone's account.
The system was running fine, no problems, everything zipped along. For no
known reason the LAN died.
We did all the usual reboots of router and machines and decided it was the
router. So we replaced it with a new Linksys WRT54GX2 and the LAN is working
again. That is to say, for the three hardwired machines. The two wireless
machines are having a nightmare. But it is stranger than that. The wireless
connection is excellent on both, the rate 54 so connection isn't the problem,
I don't think. The files and internet are fine. I replaced the wireless
adapter on the pc to wireless g as it was only b before thinking it would
help. What happens is Outlook hangs trying to read the pst file from the
server on these two machines. But only for one account. In other words, Dave
cannot use his Outlook on his main machine, but it works fine on any other
machine. Anyone else can use their Outlook account on Dave's machine without
any problem! Exactly the same thing happens on Anitas machine. She can use
her Outlook anywhere else fine except on her machine. Anyone else can use
their account on her laptop without a problem. It doesn't make any sense.
It's the same file on the same machine so I don't think it is the file that
is corrupt because it wouldn't work elsewhere. I don't think it is the
connection as it works fine if someone else logs on.
I have tried a repair on Outlook on both machines, done a reinstall. Tried
copying their pst files to another computer and accessing it from there. Same
problem. I got a great whopping length of Cat5 and connected the pc thinking
it might be a wireless problem and same thing. I've scanned for viruses,
spyware, etc. There are no individual firewalls, it is on the router and I
even turned off the virus protection. Nothing seems to work. More
mysteriously, it is an intermittant problem, sometimes it works fine, then
suddenly stops for no reason. The event viewer says nothing other than
application hang. The only thing that has changed which coincides with this
is the addition of a new machine but it is replacing an old one, so we
haven't added any more machines as such. And it has no connection with the
other two as far as files and such. There is another minor change that
someone put iTunes on the server without checking about the time our problems
started but that has been taken off and I can't see how that would effect
this. It is strange that it was working beautifully and now we have this
strange problem. I have run out of ideas and am ready to scream!!! Nothing
works. So I am open to ideas of any kind.
thank you!
I have literally run out of options here of things to try. I would love any
ideas. I look after a small office, 4 pcs and one laptop. All fairly new fast
machines, peer to peer, all running XP pro. We connect via a Linksys
router/adsl modem with three of the machines and one pc and the laptop are
wireless. Everything is stored on one of the pcs as a server. We all access
our Outlook pst files via the server and that file is backed up online daily
along with our files. I know MS does not support network pst files but we
need to be able to swap workstations for reasons I won't go into and this is
the only solution we found besides installing a server which we can't afford.
We swap desks a lot so every machine is configured with everyone's account.
The system was running fine, no problems, everything zipped along. For no
known reason the LAN died.
We did all the usual reboots of router and machines and decided it was the
router. So we replaced it with a new Linksys WRT54GX2 and the LAN is working
again. That is to say, for the three hardwired machines. The two wireless
machines are having a nightmare. But it is stranger than that. The wireless
connection is excellent on both, the rate 54 so connection isn't the problem,
I don't think. The files and internet are fine. I replaced the wireless
adapter on the pc to wireless g as it was only b before thinking it would
help. What happens is Outlook hangs trying to read the pst file from the
server on these two machines. But only for one account. In other words, Dave
cannot use his Outlook on his main machine, but it works fine on any other
machine. Anyone else can use their Outlook account on Dave's machine without
any problem! Exactly the same thing happens on Anitas machine. She can use
her Outlook anywhere else fine except on her machine. Anyone else can use
their account on her laptop without a problem. It doesn't make any sense.
It's the same file on the same machine so I don't think it is the file that
is corrupt because it wouldn't work elsewhere. I don't think it is the
connection as it works fine if someone else logs on.
I have tried a repair on Outlook on both machines, done a reinstall. Tried
copying their pst files to another computer and accessing it from there. Same
problem. I got a great whopping length of Cat5 and connected the pc thinking
it might be a wireless problem and same thing. I've scanned for viruses,
spyware, etc. There are no individual firewalls, it is on the router and I
even turned off the virus protection. Nothing seems to work. More
mysteriously, it is an intermittant problem, sometimes it works fine, then
suddenly stops for no reason. The event viewer says nothing other than
application hang. The only thing that has changed which coincides with this
is the addition of a new machine but it is replacing an old one, so we
haven't added any more machines as such. And it has no connection with the
other two as far as files and such. There is another minor change that
someone put iTunes on the server without checking about the time our problems
started but that has been taken off and I can't see how that would effect
this. It is strange that it was working beautifully and now we have this
strange problem. I have run out of ideas and am ready to scream!!! Nothing
works. So I am open to ideas of any kind.
thank you!