NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: RON NUTTER WITH ASK THE EXPERTS 11/17/04 Today's focus: Network connectivity problems
Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED], In this issue: * Help Desk columnist Ron Nutter helps a reader battling a bad ��hub/switch or an electrical problem * Links related to Ask the Experts * Featured reader resource _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by Veritas IDC White Paper, Distributed Applications Performance Management Performance management of distributed applications continues to grow in complexity, keeping pace with this constantly changing environment is a challenge for IT and performance management software vendors alike. Learn how the Veritas i3 Approach can be the foundation for your organization's Application Performance Management strategy. Download this IDC White Paper now http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=88397 _______________________________________________________________ DOWNLOAD INDUSTRY WHITE PAPERS NOW NW Fusion's White Paper Library is your source for the latest industry white papers. Recent additions to the library include white papers on WLAN Security; IT Documentation; protecting the internal network from worms, Trojan horses, and other malware threats; measuring employee productivity and more. Click here to download: http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=88289 _______________________________________________________________ Today's focus: Network connectivity problems By Ron Nutter I have five machines that when booted, hang at the Windows splash screen. They are a mixture of Windows 2000 and XP Pro clients. When I take these same machines to my office, they boot up fine and connect to the network. But when I take them back to the customer network, they start having connectivity problems. After several days of bringing in brand-new systems, reformatting, OS repairs, cable changing, etc., I discovered that if I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the back, booted to the logon screen, plugged the cable in and logged on, everything was fine. Obviously this is not the way to go. Do you have any ideas? No one I have talked to has ever seen such a thing. I've replaced the cables from the machines to the patch panel and switches, and these machines have nothing in common as far as location on the switches or patch panel. - Via the Internet What you're describing sounds like either a bad hub/switch or an electrical problem based on what you have tested so far. I would take one PC from your office to the customer location and see if it acts up like the ones at the customer location. I would expect it to based on what you have seen so far; I'm trying to see if the problem shows up on a machine that has never been on the customer network. If your machine shows the same symptoms, try a different hub/switch at the customer location. Put the test hub/switch in the same location as what is currently being used. Plug the workstation connection into it and into the network. If the problem goes away, but you can't login, move at least one of the servers over to the test hub/switch and repeat the process. If you have partial success or still can't login, you may be fighting more than one problem. If the problem goes away, you've isolated it to a bad hub/switch. The next problem you might have will be harder to trace. You have one or more bad grounds. Testing for this will be easier if you have a digital oscilloscope or know an electrical engineer who knows how to use one. Using an oscilloscope will make finding a bad ground or working problem a little quicker to find. Don't depend on the quickie $20 testers you find in a hardware or electronics store. You might have some success with an APC-brand surge protection strip. Every time I've found a problem with the digital scope, the APC surge strip has also shown a problem. Also make sure that the outlets are wired correctly. See if all the problem workstations are being fed by the same power panel (i.e., breaker box to most of us). If your network is being fed by different breaker panels, you may be fighting a ground potential difference. This will definitely take an electrical engineer to figure out. One possible resolution will be to use fiber optics to feed the portions of the network that are fed by different electrical panels to electrically isolate them from the case of the problem. This may not be a cheap fix but one I've had to use on more than one occasion to fix a similar problem. _______________________________________________________________ To contact: Ron Nutter Ron Nutter, a Master Certified Novell Engineer and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in the Lexington, Ky., area, tracks down the answers to your questions. Send your questions to <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by Veritas IDC White Paper, Distributed Applications Performance Management Performance management of distributed applications continues to grow in complexity, keeping pace with this constantly changing environment is a challenge for IT and performance management software vendors alike. Learn how the Veritas i3 Approach can be the foundation for your organization's Application Performance Management strategy. Download this IDC White Paper now http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=88396 _______________________________________________________________ ARCHIVE LINKS Dr. Internet archive: http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/blass.html Nutter's Help Desk archive: http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/nutter.html _______________________________________________________________ Free Webcast: Dynamic Change Management - Enabling IT's Response to Changing Business Requirements Join Jean-Pierre Garbani, Forrester Research, as he explores how best practices in change management can help you respond to business requests for IT change-and prevent failure of critical business systems. http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=88525 _______________________________________________________________ FEATURED READER RESOURCE NEW! 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