tough one need help from you network admin/experts

[holden j caufield]

One computer at work cannot occasionally ping the server. The server works with all other computers on the subnet. This one computer sometimes can ping the server and other times can?t. client is on the same subnet, already tested the loopback with 127.0.0.1 so tcp/ip stack is fine, pinged itself and everything seems fine. Checked the bindings and all is also ok. Tried ?ipconfig /all? and all again it seems fine. I?ve narrowed it down to the address resolution protocol. At the command prompt I?ve typed ?arp ?a? only to show that no entries exist. So using ?ipconfig /all? I?ve obtained the MAC address of the NIC on the server and then I?ve statically mapped the address resolution of aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd to the MAC address. After that is done I?ve typed ?arp ?a? and there are mappings of the server ip to the server physical/mac address. This should work but the client still can?t ping the server. Client is running win2k pro and server is win2k advanced server. tried a different nic but no go.

 

[Santa]

Have you tried differnt cables and differnt port on the switch/hub?

Is this problem after startup or intermittent while already logged in. As in does the system loose connectivity to the server then regain it back? When you start to have problems try doing a trace route and see where your dropping your packets or getting stuck at. I am not sure how many switches or servers you go through but this could give you an indication of where it is stuck in a multi server/router enviroment.

Is the network setup for DHCP?

is there a WINS server?

Is there a DNS Server?

These are a few questions need answering to determine why your loosing connectivity.

 

[holden j caufield]

this is upon startup it either is able to ping the server or not. Not intermittent connectivity loses. When it boots I logon on to it the local machine and then try to access the shares such as "\\server\HR". Sometimes we get the enter your id/pass and sometimes we get the network path was not found. This message comes up when DNS server is not setup properly but the DNS server is fine. This isn't a hardware issue in my opinion because a different nic, cable and port does not seem to solve it. thx

this client is not setup for dhcp, I've statically assigned it one but the dhcp server and clients works fine
yes there is wins server although once we can conclude that none of the apps need netbios we would like to disable netbios altogether to save bandwidth

is this a win2k software bug? and we don't plan on using SP1 until it has been throughly tested.

thx

 

[Santa]

Let me get this right.. you aren't actually logging into the domain but you are logging in localling and trying to use network resources?

While i have noticed this is possible I have seen it not the most stable solution. I too have an NT4 box that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't while logged in locally and trying to access resources over the network. I would recommend creating a computer account on the domain and log into the domain instead and that should solve your problems.

 

[holden j caufield]

it does have a computer and user account on the domain. Only problem is if I can't ping the server/domain controller then there is no way for me to even logon/access the computer/account over the domain. So my only option is to logon locally and then try to solve the problem. thx though.

 

[Santa]

I know it might sound a little repetative but I would try a differnt set of 1-2 NICs for I have had some of the similar problems and found that I was just unlucky in getting 2 bad NICS in a row. Another thing to try is delete and readd the account on the server.

Last but not least is to reinstall the OS. I had once where either some new software install or something went hokey on the win2k machine and reinstalling it was the only way to get it to see the domain again.

 

[holden j caufield]

thx I'll give it try.