Help request : Client Network connectivity problems

[bertie40]

Hiya.
2 problems, upon I request some help please.
I'm hoping I have missed something stupid.

1. I have a client who has intermittent problems loading up some websites. such as evanscycles.com. Chat to the ISP reveals no blocking problems. Site can be pinged. It just times out. Opendns setup in router. Tried with and without it running.

2. A network connected cash Till (Till_2, 192.168.1.242) which does not show up on the network, but can be pinged.
Manual ip settings work a bit, Pings ok, but no connection. ?
No network icons shown on other machines.
A switch to automatic IP settings kills everything.

Another Till (Till_1, 192.168.1.241 appears ok).

I've tried to resolve things to no avail.

I'm hoping I've overlooked something simple.

---------------------------
This is the main setup.

ADSL Broadband received via a Netgear DGN1000 modem router. (192.168.0.1 etc)

Router connects to a Netgear 8 port hub.

Hub connected to a server (Win Home Server 2011),
2 PCs (win7)
2 POS Tills (win XPe, aka Win XP embedded edition)
2 other touchscreen PCs running XP Pro.
1 Raspberry Pi.

The modem router has DCHP running, although the attached machines are using static IP addresses.
The addresses are "reserved" inside the router.
The router uses opendns.
Workgroup names are identical.

An additional cable runs from the hub to a 2nd router, set for wifi, configured to use the range 192.168.2.1 etc, to allow "public use" of wifi.

QUESTION.
The server is used for basic file sharing only. I believe it is not set up for DCHP serving.
Could the server be having an adverse effect on the network. ?
Some filtering I'm not aware of ?
Is there something within the server screwing things up ?

I've run out of ideas.
I've attached a brief network map, not sure how much good it is though, info wise.

 

[AndyM]

Sounds like a complete TIT of a setup.... Oooppss.. wrong thread...

On the XP machines, do you have simple file sharing enabled? If it is, turn it off!

Turn off Windows Firewall on all machines, turn off Anti Virus and any other protective applications.

Ensure Windows 7 is setup for 40/56 Bit file sharing.

If (I doubt it, just checking bases here) any of the machines are wireless, ensure that in the Netgear Wireless Isolation is not enabled.

Now go back and check all shares are setup correctly. Try connecting to the share through Windows GUI, and also NET USE blahdy blah...

If the connections are good, start turning on the security features one at a time etc etc...

Hope it helps you out Berty

Andy

 

[Martyn]

Agreed with above. Check the server isn't serving dhcp as well as the router. If all the computers are on fixed ip make sure mask gateway etc is correct. Your netgear is 192.168.0.1 is that a typo and should be 192.168.1.1? The computer that is 192.168.1.1 in the diagram is that the router?

 

[drjones]

At least 2-3 times I've seen this exact problem, it was a DNS issue.

Move them away from OpenDNS. Plug in Google's DNS to the router & try for a few days, see if that doesn't clear it up.

As others pointed out, do double-check your IPs; you list both 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.0.1 scopes - if you have two different DHCP servers or IP scopes going on, that will clearly give you problems.

Be careful & double-check that the WAP isn't also distributing DHCP.

 

[Markverhyden]

I'm guessing that this is not a new setup and the problem started, relatively, suddenly.

WHS 2011 does not enable DHCP and DNS with a default install. But the roles can be enabled.

Was home group setup on the W7 machines? That could be an issue with showing up on the network.

Was the cable going to the second, wireless, router plugged into the WAN port?

Did you run ipconfig /flushdns on all machines?

I agree on dumping OpenDNS to test. Use the ISP's DNS. I have had sites where 3rd party DNS addresses were not handled properly

I had a situation at one site locally that was similar to what you described in item 1 at the beginning of your post. After several weeks the IT people in Dublin said they thought it must be some kind of DNS issue. So I ended up downloading and running some DHCP explorer tools. Turns out the software developers in Minsk, yes that is correct, had a DNS server that had made it through the network maze.

I had to use 2 or 3 different tools until I found the culprit. One was DHCP Explorer. It has to be a local app you run on the network.

 

[bertie40]

Thanks for the help guys.

This has all the makings of a good ol fashioned nightmare.

I'm just writing up a report to cover the actions I took, but I expect to get involved again in a few days time.

Cheers and thanks again.

 

[bertie40]

Just to close this thread out, this is how it ended.

Condensed for your reading pleasure, the following occurred :

Me : the computerised till has a fault.
The company : No, there is a network problem, nothing to do with us. Have you tried ...... Etc.
Me : Check out the five page report I produced last week.

There then came a brief slanging match between all parties, which just stopped short of getting nasty.

Then ......

The company : look, we can't send out one of our technicians, but we will send a spare till to test your system.

Spare till arrived, installed, fired up and connected straight away.

Me : Smug mode engaged.

The end.