Bizzare network behaviour, HELP!

[Sue Henderson]

Hi there,



I would be so grateful for any help/advice offered for my dilemma as
follows:



I have a simple peer to peer network with 6 PC's all running legitimate
copies of XP Pro. PC 1 acts as a sort of file server. My company runs
specialty software installed on all PC's this software then accesses its
database on PC1. The five PC's have mapped networked drives to the file
server. Everything works fine until all of a sudden the mapped drives
disappear and consequently the software crashes because it can't find the
data source. If you open Windows Explorer and try to log onto the mapped
drive, it times out with some sort of access denied error. If you go into
"My Network Places" etc you can see all the computers on the network and can
access any other computer except PC1. There does not appear to be any
pattern of any sort, the network might stay up 5 hours, 3 hours or maybe
only an hour or so, there is no pattern. The only remedy is to reboot PC1
and then re connect all the mapped drives until they crash again.



Things I have tried:

I have replaced the ADSL modem/router in case there was a DHCP problem
issuing IP's. I have replaced the network card on PC1. I have replaced
network cabling. I have checked all PC names are unique, I have checked all
PC's are on the same workgroup. I read a tip somewhere to enable NetBios
over TCP which I did but to no avail.



A brief history:

All 6 PC's are of similar configuration, all six PC's have had Norton AV
2007 installed about two weeks ago, the problem above started early this
week (I don't think NAV has anything to do with it, but I am just mentioning
it here just in case). All PC's had been running perfectly before even with
NAV 2007. No one installed any new software or software upgrade. No one
changed any settings or hardware. No one uses IRC or messaging software.
PC's are used primarily for the specialty software that is used. The
software people are adamant that it's not their problem (if I had a dollar
every time I heard that......) although in this instance with my limited
networking knowledge, I suspect they might be right.



I am at my wits end, if anyone can help I would be most obliged. Thanks in
advance.





Sue H

 

[Guest]

:

All 6 PC's are of similar configuration, all six PC's have had Norton AV
2007 installed about two weeks ago, the problem above started early this
week

99.5% chance this is the cause. IME of this pile of junk, It almost
invariably works OK until it updates.

Basically, use anything OTHER than Norton or McAfee. They're the ones to
avoid.

Other possibilites are a faulty powersaving option in the network card's
config, or share inactivity-timeout on the server, for which you need to
change a registry value on the server.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297684

 

[Chuck]

Hi there,



I would be so grateful for any help/advice offered for my dilemma as
follows:



I have a simple peer to peer network with 6 PC's all running legitimate
copies of XP Pro. PC 1 acts as a sort of file server. My company runs
specialty software installed on all PC's this software then accesses its
database on PC1. The five PC's have mapped networked drives to the file
server. Everything works fine until all of a sudden the mapped drives
disappear and consequently the software crashes because it can't find the
data source. If you open Windows Explorer and try to log onto the mapped
drive, it times out with some sort of access denied error. If you go into
"My Network Places" etc you can see all the computers on the network and can
access any other computer except PC1. There does not appear to be any
pattern of any sort, the network might stay up 5 hours, 3 hours or maybe
only an hour or so, there is no pattern. The only remedy is to reboot PC1
and then re connect all the mapped drives until they crash again.



Things I have tried:

I have replaced the ADSL modem/router in case there was a DHCP problem
issuing IP's. I have replaced the network card on PC1. I have replaced
network cabling. I have checked all PC names are unique, I have checked all
PC's are on the same workgroup. I read a tip somewhere to enable NetBios
over TCP which I did but to no avail.



A brief history:

All 6 PC's are of similar configuration, all six PC's have had Norton AV
2007 installed about two weeks ago, the problem above started early this
week (I don't think NAV has anything to do with it, but I am just mentioning
it here just in case). All PC's had been running perfectly before even with
NAV 2007. No one installed any new software or software upgrade. No one
changed any settings or hardware. No one uses IRC or messaging software.
PC's are used primarily for the specialty software that is used. The
software people are adamant that it's not their problem (if I had a dollar
every time I heard that......) although in this instance with my limited
networking knowledge, I suspect they might be right.

Sue,

Is PC1 used as a personal computer too? What's the power setting on the network
adapter?
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/06/does-your-computer-lose-network.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/06/does-your-computer-lose-network.html

Might be useful to see the complete and exact "access denied" error.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/01/look-at-complete-detail-in-error.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/01/look-at-complete-detail-in-error.html

Might be good to see what PC1 is doing, when it drops offline.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/04/watching-what-your-computer-is-doing.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/04/watching-what-your-computer-is-doing.html

 

[Sue Henderson]

Thanks for that Ian, I will see what happens if I uninstall NAV 2007.

Sue

 

[Sue Henderson]

Hi Chuck,

I believe it is set to "allow this computer to turn off the device to save
power". I don't believe the card would be shutting down as there is always
network activity?

Sue

 

[Chuck]

Hi Chuck,

I believe it is set to "allow this computer to turn off the device to save
power". I don't believe the card would be shutting down as there is always
network activity?

Don't confuse Wake On LAN with network adapter power saver. The latter is
generally tied to lack of keyboard / mouse activity, and generally synchronises
with the screensaver. If you have it set to "allow this computer to turn off
the device to save power", and there's nobody at the keyboard, this could well
be a problem. When you setup a server, this is one setting to disable.

 

[Sue Henderson]

Thank you for your help Chuck, I will disable this and have another look.
Those links in your post made for very interesting reading, thanks.

Regards,

Sue

 

[Sue Henderson]

Hi again,

Well it's happened again. Over the weekend, I reinstalled Windows over the
top on the server. I also disabled the servers network card power saving
feature.

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Sue

 

[Chuck]

Hi again,

Well it's happened again. Over the weekend, I reinstalled Windows over the
top on the server. I also disabled the servers network card power saving
feature.

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Sue

Sue,

I'd want to see what's happening to the network, specifically, when PC1
disappears.

Do you have an administrative account, that you use to access all computers? If
not, set one up - you'll need it. Diagnosing the problem will be a lot easier
if you can run diagnostics from one computer.

Get browstat, and install it (copy it) onto each computer.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/browstat-utility-from-microsoft.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/browstat-utility-from-microsoft.html

Get PSTools, and learn how to use PSExec to run tasks on one computer, from
another computer.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/essential-tools-for-desktop-and.html#PSTools>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/essential-tools-for-desktop-and.html#PSTools

When the network is running properly, run "browstat status", "ipconfig /all",
and "net config server" from each computer, using PSExec. Here's a quick little
script that I use occasionally.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/12/netcheck-source.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/12/netcheck-source.html

 

[Sue Henderson]

Thanks again for your help. You may be interested to know what fixed the
problem in the end. I simply removed Norton AV 2007 from the server PC and
the network hasn't missed a beat since. I installed Avast AV instead which
appears to be adequate.

Thanks again,

Sue.

 

[Chuck]

Thanks again for your help. You may be interested to know what fixed the
problem in the end. I simply removed Norton AV 2007 from the server PC and
the network hasn't missed a beat since. I installed Avast AV instead which
appears to be adequate.

Thanks again,

Sue.

Another personal firewall issue, and NAV yet. Thanks for the feedback, Sue.