Losing network connection to Exchange Server

[cygnusman]

Hi All,
I do not apologise for posting this on both the Exchange forum and here, it's driving me mad!

Since installing a new Dell 350 server to run Exchange Server our clients randomly lose their connection to the server. At these times you cannot ping the server but it can ping out to the lan. Connections from the server to the internet thru the network are OK. The connection 'returns' after 10 minutes or so! Microsoft thought this was a master browser problem and have studied our network config and they declared it OK but nevertheless problems persists!

Moved the hard-disk and functions to a second identical server and the problem moved!

I suspect problems with Dell 350 design.

Any ideas or anyone seen similar??

Many thanks,

Cygnusman

 

[nmsjg]

I've had similar problems that have always pointed back to hard setting the NIC to full duplex AS WELL AS the port that the server is plugged into. If both are set to "AUTO" these connection problems come up sporadically.

Also verify that you're running the newest NIC drivers available.

I don't understand why Microsoft thought this would be a browsing issue since Outlook and Exchange use DNS for name resolution.