I have a home business network that exists in 2 physical locations. The primary location houses 2 Windows 2003 Servers, several workstations and laptops. My router is a Symantec VPN Appliance 200R (192.168.6.12), and I have configured both locations under the subnet 192.168.6.x with the router as a DHCP server. The router is connected to the internet via a commercial DSL account with a Static IP address. The Domain Controller running Active Directory is the DNS Server. The Servers manage a 5TB database.
Within the primary location I have deployed 2 Wireless Access Points (D-Link DWL-2100) to service the laptops while the workstations are hard-wired via a gigabit switch. All users within my primary location are successfully accessing BOTH shared network resources AND the internet, from either the laptops connecting via wireless or workstations connecting via hard-wire. There are NO TIME-OUT problems on this side of my bridge.
The secondary location IS MY PROBLEM. It is located approximately 200yds from the primary location, and I have utilized 2 additional D-Link DWL-2100 access points with external antennas to create a wireless bridge between locations. I've configured the access points to operate AS a bridge. On the 'primary' side, the access point is connected via a gigabit switch to the Symantec router. On the 'secondary' side the other access point connects to a different gigabit switch, which then connects to 3 additional workstations. INTERNET ACCESS from the secondary location ceases to work 2-5 minutes after booting & logging on. Microsoft networking (file sharing mostly) works perfectly, with no timeout issues. Once internet access 'hangs', I'm unable to ping the Symantec router at all, yet I am still able to ping the 2 servers and all access points (on either side of the bridge). When the internet 'hangs', I can actually ping every device BUT the router from a desktop at the seconday location.
All I have to do to fix the problem is to ask Windows to 'repair' the connection, and then internet access works fine - FOR ANOTHER 2-5 MINUTES. I've worked this problem for weeks, and I'm going insane trying things. All firmware is current, all platforms are running XP with latest fixes. So why does my router loose track of the desktops across my bridge? It seems odd that 'Repair Connection' can fix the problem so easily, and that my file sharing is not impacted at all. My guess is that the issue lies with NAT or routing configuration. Please help!
