Outlook Client times out accessing local Exchange Server

[MISAdmin]

I have a Windows 98 Client with Outlook 2000. The client is connected via the LAN over TCP/IP to an Exchange 5.5 Server.

When the client is launched, it times out looking for the Exchange server and prompts you with the "work offline or retry" option... If you retry, after about 30 seconds it generally will connect to the Server and let you into your mail box. This does not happen on every client. The clients that it does happen to can ping the Exchange Server with no problems, and can use a shared DSL internet connection while the Outlook client is timing out... I don't think it's an IP issue.

One other thing I have noted is that MAPISP32 is usually found to be Not Responding when the client won't connect and Ending Task on it sometimes speeds things along...

Any suggestions?

 

[sigmab]

When did this start happening??? can you pinpoint any network related issues around this time or was anything loaded onto affected machines around the time that this started happening??? The fact that mapisp32 goes not responding sometimes, tells me that you have an unstable local connection to your exchange server as mapisp32 is stored locally. Have you tried reinstalling outlook locally on a affected machine????

 

[MISAdmin]

Actually, the machine was just "rebuilt"... fdisked, formatted, fresh install of Win98, fresh install of Office... I am skeptical of the NIC in the machine as it is a "no-name" brand so I'm using an NE2000 compatible driver for it. Actually, I am just in the process of swapping the NIC out for an Intel 100b...