Run out of ideas on a problem with a client's computer..Any suggestions?

[BadBoy House]

I've got a client who has a problem with one of their workstations. It intermittently loses connection to another workstation/shared printer.

The setup is as follows: Windows Server 2003 domain controller (provides DHCP and DNS services), 10 workstations - 9 are XP Pro, one is Windows 7 Pro.

The Windows 7 workstation has a Brother printer attached to it which is shared across the whole network. All workstations can print to the shared printer apart from one workstation which intermittently loses connectivity to that workstation.

When the problem occurs, the workstation in question is unable to ping to Windows 7 workstation, nor can it access the printer. Trying \\computername in Start - Run brings up the usual error about being unable to connect. This workstation can access all the shared resources on other workstations on the network and on the server - it just loses connectivity to the one workstation.

When this problem occurs, all other workstations and the server can still access the Windows 7 workstation fine - they can ping it, print to the shared printer and access it via Start-Run-\\computername.

I've tried everything I can think of on the workstation with the problem:- different network cable, different network socket, uninstalled firewall, reinstalled network card drivers, different IP, different computer name.

What's interesting/annoying is that it's totally intermittent - one minute the workstation will be able to print fine then a few minutes later it will lose connectivity. I also noticed a couple of times that when doing a ping -t to the Windows 7 workstation, there would be say 1 reply out of every 10 - but this only occurred a couple of times.

I've pretty much run out of things to try on this one - my next plan would probably be to format the workstation.

Can anyone suggest anything I've not yet tried?

 

[Kitten Kong]

How about a different network card, inside the 'faulty' pc.

On my main machine, I was having similar issues, with the onboard nic. Installed a separate nic, and everything is working again.

 

[YOCS]

This may not apply but doesn't Microsoft impose a limit of only 10 concurrent sessions to any one PC...
I think there is a registry hack out there to allow more.

 

[drjones]

I recall reading of some pretty serious problems with getting XP & 7 to talk directly to each other.

It may just be unsolvable. XP support expires in April 2014, I'd just use this as an excuse to upgrade that workstation to 7.

Also, why isn't the printer shared out from the server? That's how it should be...would avoid issues like this.

 

[nlinecomputers]

When this problem occurs, all other workstations and the server can still access the Windows 7 workstation fine - they can ping it, print to the shared printer and access it via Start-Run-\\computername.

And what of the system that can't access. Can anyone access it when it is down? Can it access the internet but not the printer? Can you access by IP address and not share name? What errors show in the event logs when this happens?

 

[gikstar]

Can that one computer access the internet at the time this problem is occurring?

We had a client which had a network cable to one of their computers running on the floor and behind a filing cabinet. It had intermittent network access. We ran a cable straight to the switch and everything was OK. Pulled the old wire and found it had become frayed behind the filing cabinet, which was causing the problem.

 

[kwest]

Had the same issue this week. The user changed the IP address settings. Changed the dns1 back to the server IP and second as the router IP. Boom all fixed

 

[Turcoloco]

Concurrent connection limitation is a possibility but the fact that only that one particular machine is having this problem leads me to believe the culprit is something else.

I don't believe any computing issue such as this is unsolvable, granted correct troubleshooting steps are taken. Since it is PC specific, if it is seemingly unsolvable, then a re-image should resolve it. I tend to agree with Cadishead, this is either a problem with the NIC in use or a problem with the image, as mentioned, during this issue Event Logs should be checked. One other thing to monitor would be the network traffic on the troubled machine to make sure no foul network activity is taking place.

I agree though, the file server should be the print server instead of some random workstation. Even better, if the printer supported it, it should be connected to the LAN via IP address instead of being connected via USB to a PC acting as a server, less things to go wrong and troubleshoot when thing do not work.

 

[djyox]

I agree with Cadishead. This might be due to a faulty network card. If the card is not emb in the mobo, have you reseated it?

 

[OfficeTechs]

faulty NIC or bad ARP .

Do an 'arp -a' from the command prompt and double check the IP of the destination workstation matches its MAC. Do the same from the destination workstation back to source. Add a static ARP entry if you need to 'arp /?' to find out how to do that. Think its 'arp -s IPADDY MACADDY'

 

[Martyn]

run two cmd prompts and ping a couple of ip addresses i.e.

ping -t <printerworkstation> in one cmd session
ping -t www.google.com in another
maybe one more

You could try various scenarios to narrow it down but if it was the local nic then they will all fail.

You could redirect the output to file as well.

I've seen some odd problems with switch ports as well. If it isn't local you could try setting the switch(if it is managed) to a lower speed as sometimes a problem cable will fail intermittently at higher speeds and work fine at lower.

Not a problem with a duplicate ip especially on printers which are normally fixed ip?

 

[MobileTechie]

You could try trying to find out the scope of hte problem.

Set up a network between the workstation and your laptop with just the one cable and ping -t to see if drop outs. If not then include the switch. If not then swap your laptop into where the other PC is and see. That way you can eliminate parts of the network to zone in on which component is the problem

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

This may not apply but doesn't Microsoft impose a limit of only 10 concurrent sessions to any one PC...
I think there is a registry hack out there to allow more.

With Windows XP...that was true, it was raised to 20 with Windows 7 (perhaps Vista...unsure, never cared about Vista)

What happened to this thread, it was like 3 pages long and I had 2 replies in it yesterday, one of which the OP even answered back to?

Uh....to start over.....OP, have you checked event viewer on both the workstation and that Win7 host? I am wondering if there are master browser issues....specifically from the WinXP machine. By default a DC should take over as master browser when all workstations are properly joined to the domain...but....Windows will be Windows, sometimes have a troublemaker or two. There are registry edits to force a misbehaving workstation from thinking it's the master browser.

Check the lmhosts file of that WinXP machine. Not knowing the history of this network...maybe workstations where in a peer to peer workgroup setup and that Win7 host used to host a printer years ago...or its name did on an older WinXP machine...and they used the poor mans WINS hosts approach.

The Win7 machine...did it publish the printer in active directory?? (in the share properties of the printer object)

Why not take the printer and share it from the server? When you have a client/server network, I always do everything I can to have all shares on the server, and avoid client shares. Helps avoid hair-ripping-out quirks like this.

 

[BadBoy House]

With Windows XP...that was true, it was raised to 20 with Windows 7 (perhaps Vista...unsure, never cared about Vista)

What happened to this thread, it was like 3 pages long and I had 2 replies in it yesterday, one of which the OP even answered back to?

Uh....to start over.....OP, have you checked event viewer on both the workstation and that Win7 host? I am wondering if there are master browser issues....specifically from the WinXP machine. By default a DC should take over as master browser when all workstations are properly joined to the domain...but....Windows will be Windows, sometimes have a troublemaker or two. There are registry edits to force a misbehaving workstation from thinking it's the master browser.

Check the lmhosts file of that WinXP machine. Not knowing the history of this network...maybe workstations where in a peer to peer workgroup setup and that Win7 host used to host a printer years ago...or its name did on an older WinXP machine...and they used the poor mans WINS hosts approach.

The Win7 machine...did it publish the printer in active directory?? (in the share properties of the printer object)

Why not take the printer and share it from the server? When you have a client/server network, I always do everything I can to have all shares on the server, and avoid client shares. Helps avoid hair-ripping-out quirks like this.

I've enabled this for them - if/when the problem next occurs they're going to link to the printer via the server.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

My other suggestion would be if the printer has a network port, assign it a static IP address and bypass printer sharing altogether and install it on the machines via IP. More work initially but you might save headaches.