Windows networking/filesharing unreliable, random, works some days & not others

[wchang99]

I have a simple home network, with a wireless Buffalo router and 2 computers connected to it by cat5 and 5 or so others (3 computers, and a Wii and IP cable set-top box) connected by wireless. Without ever changing the settings, from day to day sometimes computers can see each other on the network and sometimes they never can; sometimes some computers can see other computers but not all others, and sometimes they can see each other but when I click on that computer in Explorer, it says it's not accessible. It seems pretty random.. Again, this is all without changing any settings.

This has always been the case no matter what router I use (before the wireless Buffalo, there was a phoneline Linksys), and what computers seemingly, also (there have been varying combinations of Vista, XP, 2000). Does this make any sense.. is there something I should be doing?

(As to the wireless, it doesn't seem to be the problem. The signal is always pretty good, and internet on the wireless computers always works fine (very fast, at least). I may well have seen this connection problem between the two cat5 computers, but I'm not certain.)

I'm not using DHCP. Thanks!

edit: it doesn't seem related to accessing computers that are asleep -- I'm trying to access one right now that I know is not asleep.

 

[Slowlearner]

I'm not using DHCP. << Does that mean you have fixed IPs for all the devices on the network?

Are all the wired devices on same workgroup? They dont need to be, but it helps.

Why do you need to see them all? - transfer files. If thats all you need - installing Netbuei protocol on all the wired PCs is a quick fix.

 

[JackMDS]

Check the Power Saving of the Network Cards (wire & Wireless) and make sure that it configure to wake up n network traffic.

Or get the NICs out of the Power Saving Loop. I.e, they should Not save power.

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