Lan Failure

[baracuda]

Our P2P has been experiencing networking issues on and off for a couple of weeks. I don't know a whole lot about networking. The 12 offices in the organization have cat 5 feeding into a device that is basically like a junction box with an RJ45 port for each office that can then be connected to the netgear 16 port hub via a cat 5 cable. We have recently added a wireless feature to our network which meant we received a gateway from AT&T and that was up and running for about 4 weeks with everything functioning properly on both the WAN and LAN sides. When the problem started it was sporatic with a few workstations not being able to print to a networked printer and not seeing the other systems on the network. I assumed the hub had gone bad since it was a bit antiquated and so I replaced it with an unmanaged Linksys 24 port switch. Thought that solved the problem but when I checked on it a week later, I was back to square one with everyone still being able to access the internet but several workstations not being able to share resources. The locations of the workstations experiencing problems are spread throughout the office so it doesn't appear to be a location issue. The affected workstations are not always the same and occassionally I can get a system reconnected just by repeated trial and error attempts like using windows network setup. I have checked that the problem machines are named to the workgroup correctly; I have checked that they have file and print sharing set up and that the windows firewall is set with the file sharing exceptions. All machines run Norton antivirus. I have a hard time believing it would be the windows firewall or norton since those were in place when everything was working. I decided maybe the gateway was bad so I purchased a wireless linksys router and now have it connecting between a DSL modem and the linksys switch. That didn't resolve the problem either. Now what? Any suggestions?

 

[LawnBoy]

Chances are your NetBios Master Browser is messed up. MS KB188305 will explain how to troubleshoot.

 

[TimRegester]

To explain in more layman terms (judging from the tone of the original entry) A simple windows Workgroup will try and elect one of the PCs as the master browser, the 'boss' of the network. The criteria for which PC it is can be convoluted, but once elected that PC should be left on 24/7 or turned on before any of the other PCs each morning.

If the master browser is turned off the other PCs will reelect another PC as master browser, but the new 'boss' will not know what the old boss does, it will have to learn, and may not learn it all, specifically not seeing other PCs on the network.

The referred article explains how to turn off the ability to be the master browser on each PC thus rigging the election and ensuring the boss knows it all, all the time.

It is probably time to get a server if you have 12 PCs, this needn't cost the earth find someone who can build a linux box with Samba for you and put all the shares on it, though all your PCs will need to run windows xp pro, windows 2000, windows 98 or even windows 95 but not windows xp home.

 

[baracuda]

Hey thanks for the info about the master browser. I did end up following the suggestions of the KB article and also found another microsoft article (KB 825826) that addresses the protocol for troubleshooting workgroup networking problems. I was successful in resolving the problem but I believe I had multiple issues - for example, on one of the pc's TCP/IP wasn't correctly bound, on another the remote access connection manager service wasn't started, etc. - it seemed like each of the problem PC's had a different issue. I also discovered that the DSL modem provided by AT&T had the wrong email address (user id) associated with it and that the router had a few settings that needed changing.

We are going to be migrating to a domain later this year. . .can't wait.