Hi all.
I'm having some issues with a small business client that I can use some help with. I'm not very good with networking so I'm looking for all the help I can get.
Story is this: Client had 6 networked computers, no servers, just workgroup. 3 of the computers are Windows 7 (don't know if Pro or Home Premium), 3 are XP Pro. They called me in to replace one of the XP machines with a new Dell Optiplex 9020 Windows 7 Pro system.
The printer they're using is an HP LJ P4015n, and it's connected via USB to this XP (now Win7) machine and shared out to the others.
Now the wiring in this place was not done by a pro and it's obvious from the outside, but I didn't get a chance to check out all their equipment yet due to time constraints. All I know is that when I try to login to their router, the splash page shows it's a Sonicwall, but they don't know the password etc. I'm just mentioning this in case the Sonicwall might be the cause of the problems I'll outline shortly.
I tried to connect a temporary desktop switch to the one port next to this computer, so that both the old XP machine and the new Win7 machine could go online at the same time. This way I can install and update Quickbooks on the new machine while transferring the data from the old system via the network shares. Problem was that if I plugged in the computers via the switch they didn't get an IP address, just APIPA (169.254.x.x). Both computers did this, and I tried with two different switches with the same result. If I would connect either one of the computers directly to the jack in the wall it would get an IP address. So it can't be that the port is configured to only allow a specific MAC address, because the new computer worked fine.
Question is: Why couldn't I get an IP address when going through the switch? (btw: when I checked the Windows 7 Network map graphic, it showed the computer was connected to switch --> switch --> gateway. Is it possible that a third switch is too much?)
OK. So I just connected the new Win7 computer to the jack and used an external HDD to transfer the files over. The computer connected fine to the Internet and I installed and updated Quickbooks, Office etc. I mapped a network drive to their network share and could access it fine, but I can't copy anything to it. If it's a very small txt file it would go ok, but anything larger than that would just take very long. It would say something like Discovering files..... in the copying status window, but would just hang there. I checked the permissions on the main computer being used as their file server, and Everyone was allowed full control, both on the NTFS permissions, and the share permissions.
Another problem came up when trying to use Quickbooks, which I believe is related to this problem with accessing the network share. The company file is located on this network share. I launched Quickbooks, opened the company file via the mapped drive, and after a while it opened on this new computer. Problem is, every time I try to do anything in Quickbooks, it hangs for a while and then errors out due to connection loss to the server or something, and I have to abort. It seems that the slow connection is causing Quickbooks to error out, and is the same thing causing problems with writing to the share.
Another issue came up with the printer. I installed the printer locally and shared it out to the others. After installing the printer on the other machines (it took a while for them to discover this printer on the network) it prints fine as long as the new computer does not try to open Quickbooks. Once QB is opened on the new machine, the other printers take forever to print to it.
The new computer is really high spec for a business machine: i7, 8GB, Intel Gigabit NIC, dedicated graphics, etc, so it's not the machine.
If the jack is to blame, why did the old XP machine not have these problems? Would the router be limiting speeds on a new PC connected to it?
I checked all the advanced sharing options in Windows 7 and they are set to allow basically everything, just like on the other Win7 systems in this office.
I'm going by tomorrow to replace another of the XP machines with a new Win7 system. What should I check when I'm there? I'm going to try a different jack just in case and I'll bring along a USB-Ethernet adapter just in case. What else should I look at?
Thanks in advance.
I'm having some issues with a small business client that I can use some help with. I'm not very good with networking so I'm looking for all the help I can get.
Story is this: Client had 6 networked computers, no servers, just workgroup. 3 of the computers are Windows 7 (don't know if Pro or Home Premium), 3 are XP Pro. They called me in to replace one of the XP machines with a new Dell Optiplex 9020 Windows 7 Pro system.
The printer they're using is an HP LJ P4015n, and it's connected via USB to this XP (now Win7) machine and shared out to the others.
Now the wiring in this place was not done by a pro and it's obvious from the outside, but I didn't get a chance to check out all their equipment yet due to time constraints. All I know is that when I try to login to their router, the splash page shows it's a Sonicwall, but they don't know the password etc. I'm just mentioning this in case the Sonicwall might be the cause of the problems I'll outline shortly.
I tried to connect a temporary desktop switch to the one port next to this computer, so that both the old XP machine and the new Win7 machine could go online at the same time. This way I can install and update Quickbooks on the new machine while transferring the data from the old system via the network shares. Problem was that if I plugged in the computers via the switch they didn't get an IP address, just APIPA (169.254.x.x). Both computers did this, and I tried with two different switches with the same result. If I would connect either one of the computers directly to the jack in the wall it would get an IP address. So it can't be that the port is configured to only allow a specific MAC address, because the new computer worked fine.
Question is: Why couldn't I get an IP address when going through the switch? (btw: when I checked the Windows 7 Network map graphic, it showed the computer was connected to switch --> switch --> gateway. Is it possible that a third switch is too much?)
OK. So I just connected the new Win7 computer to the jack and used an external HDD to transfer the files over. The computer connected fine to the Internet and I installed and updated Quickbooks, Office etc. I mapped a network drive to their network share and could access it fine, but I can't copy anything to it. If it's a very small txt file it would go ok, but anything larger than that would just take very long. It would say something like Discovering files..... in the copying status window, but would just hang there. I checked the permissions on the main computer being used as their file server, and Everyone was allowed full control, both on the NTFS permissions, and the share permissions.
Another problem came up when trying to use Quickbooks, which I believe is related to this problem with accessing the network share. The company file is located on this network share. I launched Quickbooks, opened the company file via the mapped drive, and after a while it opened on this new computer. Problem is, every time I try to do anything in Quickbooks, it hangs for a while and then errors out due to connection loss to the server or something, and I have to abort. It seems that the slow connection is causing Quickbooks to error out, and is the same thing causing problems with writing to the share.
Another issue came up with the printer. I installed the printer locally and shared it out to the others. After installing the printer on the other machines (it took a while for them to discover this printer on the network) it prints fine as long as the new computer does not try to open Quickbooks. Once QB is opened on the new machine, the other printers take forever to print to it.
The new computer is really high spec for a business machine: i7, 8GB, Intel Gigabit NIC, dedicated graphics, etc, so it's not the machine.
If the jack is to blame, why did the old XP machine not have these problems? Would the router be limiting speeds on a new PC connected to it?
I checked all the advanced sharing options in Windows 7 and they are set to allow basically everything, just like on the other Win7 systems in this office.
I'm going by tomorrow to replace another of the XP machines with a new Win7 system. What should I check when I'm there? I'm going to try a different jack just in case and I'll bring along a USB-Ethernet adapter just in case. What else should I look at?
Thanks in advance.
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