All network clients lose connection when one computer is turned on

[doitwright]

My office has a Win98SE peer to peer network with 10 computers conected to it. On Friday morning all was well and at 9:30am CST everyone of them lost connection to the network. After testing several lines we found when this one comupter was disconnected from the network everyone was back on. Reconnect and eveyone is off again. I retested the line and it checked out ok. I replaced the network card but to no avail, I then put the hard drive into another computer that was working fine (to scan for a virus)in the office we discovered that did not work and the new computer would not connect either. It had worked fine until I moved it into the office. I also found that the computer and/or line has a 94% packet loss. I suspect something is wrong with the line but I can't find any physical problems with it and it shows green on the tester. I am totaly lost as what to do next. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jdemmi]

Sounds like a virus, spyware or other type of malicious program attacking the PC. I would run a full virus scan as well as a spyware remover (spybot S&D for example) (with the pc removed from the network)

-- Jason
"It's Just Ones and Zeros

 

[jimbopalmer]

Just a thought, if the TCP/IP address settings for that computer are the same as your router, all packets headed for the internet will go to it, instead of the router.

If that sounds like your symtoms, check out the IP address of that PC.

It was unclear to me if you had tested other PCs on the suspect line or the suspect HD on other lines

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[doitwright]

I have checked it for spyware and adware, nothing there, I have taken other computers that work from other offices and put them in the office in question and had the same results, NO access to network. I have tested and retested the cables and the connections and all check out with the tester. Each computer has its own IP address on the network.

 

[jdemmi]

OK...have you tried switching ports on the hub? (Just as a test)

-- Jason
"It's Just Ones and Zeros

 

[doitwright]

Yes, sorry to have left that one off of what I have done to try to fix this. There is a new wrinkle in the mix, as of noon today only 4 of the 10 computers show up in network neighborhood. It is the same ones on every machine but they are on differnt hubs on the network. None of the wiring exceeds 70 feet and all still test OK with a line tester. All the computers except the one office have internet connection and our internal message/chat programs sees all the workstations. I can ping everyone except the one office.

 

[bcastner]

It can take quite a while to repopulate a Browser table once it is disturbed, so missing machines in Network Neighborhood is not worrisome.

You have convinced me that you need to pull a new cable from the troublesome office to the hub.

 

[Waidesworld]

Are all systems operating with the same OS? If not you may be getting browser election issues and losing network connectivity.

Please address my pet hate, "a cable is loose, you lose your keys

 

[bcastner]

Browser election issues do not shut down an entire network segment as soon as a machine is switched on.

 

[smah]

I'm with bcastner 100% on this one - you have a hardware fault that is cabling/connection related. One thing that hasn't been mentioned though - look for touching contacts in the wall/hub/patch panel/nic jacks.

 

[jjjthird]

peer-peer limited to 10 nodes?

Joe

Another Child of God

 

[bcastner]

P-2-P is not limited to 10 nodes. Using Win2k or XP as share servers has a 10 connection limit, but you could easily be in a setting with thousands of peer-2-peer clients as long as no more than 10 connections to an XP or Win2k workstation OS was attempted at one time.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314882

Even then, your network would work fine, you would just get a message trying to map a drive or printer to the at the limits workstation.