Constant TCP/IP disconnects

[Eric]

I have a Windows 2000 ws, SP4, which is a part of AD domain. There are
multiple workstations in this domain and I appear to be the only one having
this problem. Our IT department has been unable to figure it out and it is
driving me nuts. For quite a few months I have been a experiencing what
appears to be tcp/ip disconnects. This is a constant problem but the
frequency and duration of the problem is variable. TCP/IP is the only
network protocol installed on this machine. It does not appear to affect
using internal network resources, drives, mail, printers etc., but it is
especially noticable in two areas. The first is AOLs IM. It can run for
several hours straight without interruption other times it may disconnect
after only a couple minutes. It usually can reconnect fairly quickly but
other times it may take several minutes. The second area is IE. Internet
browsing and downloading is a real problem. Often when browing to a site or
to pages within a site I will get a page not found error if I keep hitting
the refresh it will eventually bring the page up. Internet downloads are
also often interrupted. I've swapped out the nic with no luck and my IT
department has tested the wall connection and says it looks good. I've
looked in the event viewer but have not seen anything that looked telling
there. I occasionly boot into safe mode w/network support and seem to run
succesfully, but I can't work within there. I've entirely rebuilt my
machine once and it seemed OK for a couple days but then back to the same
problems. I'm at a loss as to what to look at next and I'm seeking
suggestions.


Thanks

Eric

 

[Derek]

This may be a networking issue. You may want to ask you
IT dept what type of hubs/switches their using and how
many are connected.---> this is why: (I'm going to give
you condensed version as I could write a whole page on
this.) Some IT departments don't take the 3-4-5 rule into
consideration when they design their network, so as more
computers are needed to connect, they keep adding on more
hubs. --This could create an octopus of routes each
computer on the network needs to remember... (this used to
be called "Ghosting Effect" when servers would appear and
disappear in the network browser. If they've tested your
port, they probably tested the port back to the hub, but
they need to look at the grand picture. If you're a node
on a hub off of another hub off of another hub... (see
where I'm going with this) then as the traffic increases,
your packets may be getting dropped. Easy way to test is
to set up a sniffer on your port and monitor traffic to
your internet gateway and the rest of the newwork for a
few days.

 

[Eric]

Derek,
Thank you for the response, after discussing your response with my IT
department, here is what I got back:
Everyone in the office connects the same way.

| WS |-------->| HUB |--------->| Switch |------->| Firewall |

NOTE: The "5-4-3 rule" only applies to 10Base network, not 100Base.

A sniffer was run but only for a few hours and nothing unusual was noticed.

They are going to extend the sniffer test for a few days though so maybe
something more will come of it.

Thanks.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Ask the IT guys to plug your port into a different port on the hub,
power-cycle the switch (to clear its address table) and then see what
happens.

Steve