Question

P2P Network Going Down!?!?

Asked by: umcmu

Hey all I'm new to this site but have used it in the past.  First thing, how come I can't find any material dated in 2007 on here?  Just curious.

Anyway, I have a customer who is using a simple peer to peer network with about 50 or so users/PCs.  There is no file server and they use the network to access the internet, network printers, some network programs and file shares.  The modem/router is a Cisco 2400 which is managed by their ISP, from there a cross over cable connects to 7, 24 port Netgear switches then to a cat5e patch panel and off to the PCs.  The Switches are daisy chained from top to bottom.

Anyway all operations have been fine for years until we switched ISP's and then we started experiencing complete network outages.  I think the switch is coincidental at this point as we switched back to the old ISP and still had the problem.  We're back on the current and still the same thing.  What is happening is that the network will go down roughly once a week to a couple times a week and it happens anywhere from 2pm to 7pm (peak traffic possibly) when it goes down it's down anywhere from 2 minutes to 20.  

I'm thinking since things have been fine for years that the physical layer is ok, I'm curious about a bad switch and have placed the first one in the cascade with no luck.  What I'm thinking now is that there is either a bad cable, bad NIC or a virus causing this problem.  I'm not on site all of the time and since it's so random the only way I could do anything is be there everyday from 2-7pm for a week or two and that's just not logical.

What else can I check and what else can I do?  If it's traffic should the network be configured different even though it's never been an issue before?  If anything they may have a few more users than in the past........  What I would really like is a piece of software that can monitor the network and keep track of when a new PC is turned on and such.  What I'm thinking is that if they go down I could check the history of said software for around that time and see the IP/PC name that just showed up in the software.  My thought is that that would be the offending machine providing it's a PC that is the issue.  PCs are a mix of XP, 2000, Me, 98.  Mainly xp and 2000 though.

Help!!!

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Asked On
2007-01-04 at 15:38:45ID22111649
Topics

Miscellaneous Networking

,

Windows Networking

,

Networking Hardware

Participating Experts
5
Points
250
Comments
15

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Answers

 

by: Jay_Jay70Posted on 2007-01-04 at 17:13:00ID: 18248443

your work is cut out for you and much harder considering your on a P2P network, what a nightmare that must be to manage!

You really should get them a server and a domain environment, any more than three machines and i jsutify a server :)

Its possible its windows updates kicking off, but i honestly am not sure how you would check for anything in P2P as nothing is centralised

 

by: carl_legerePosted on 2007-01-04 at 17:24:36ID: 18248513

Although there are more robust backbone methods then I will suggest, your daisy chained switches from netgear are on the low end of backbone technology, it is a shared backbone.

What are your outage symptoms?  Can you isolate the problems?

 I think it is a bad switch or a port on a switch, but troubleshooting this will be difficult.  If you rearrange your network into a star configuration.  Port 1 on switch 1 is the internet gateway for example. port 2 goes to switch 2 port 3 to switch 3, etc.

I'd be buying all new ports if there were money.

 

by: umcmuPosted on 2007-01-04 at 17:45:50ID: 18248620

After much reading here I'm thinking that the switch configuration may be the issue.  As it is, the router is plugged into #12 on the first switch and then 24 goes to 12 on the one below it and so on.  I will stop by the office tomorrow and move things around so that all switches are fed off of the first one in order like you explained, port 1 for router, port 2 for second switch, port 3 for third switch, etc.

From what I've been told the whole network goes down, no internet, no file sharing, no printing, nothing, as far as isolating the problem, that's the part I need to work on and the first step will be reconfiguring how the cables are plugged into the switches.

 

by: jasonr0025Posted on 2007-01-04 at 19:43:42ID: 18249102

you could also have a chattering nic on a pc that hogs all available bandwidth when its logged on.  If you could be there at the time of the problem it would be interesting to see how the port lights on the switches are acting while the network is down----look for one that is blinking non stop/

 

by: keith_alabasterPosted on 2007-01-04 at 23:04:06ID: 18249735

Are all the users on the one subnet? ie is the Cisco router providing any layer 3 functions?

Might be worthwhile downloading and installing ethereal/wireshark onto a work station and letting it run whilst capturing what it sees during this time period. Its a free sniffer/analyser.

Might be worth asking the ISP if they are seeing anything bizarre on the 2400 also.

 

by: adamdrayerPosted on 2007-01-05 at 07:41:44ID: 18251913

First, do the switches maintain logs?  I had a similar problem and determined that one of thte switches was rebooting itself by looking at one of the logs.

So do all the computers' network connections go down regardless of what switch they are plugged into?  Like can 2 computers on the last switch in the cascase talk to each other?  If all the computers can no longer talk to anything, then with your setup I would agree that it's either
A. a chattering NIC
B. a broadcast storm - there may be a loop in your switchblock somewhere.

 

by: umcmuPosted on 2007-01-05 at 10:53:48ID: 18253744

Everyone is on one subnet and I do plan on getting in touch with the ISP next time it goes down to see if they can see anything.

All PC's go down and when I say that I mean all PCs that people are working on currently.  I stopped by there today to setup the switches in a star config and told the girl there to check the lights next time they go down.

These are passive switches so no logs.

 

by: adamdrayerPosted on 2007-01-05 at 12:10:16ID: 18254431

well two computers who are attached to the same switch should be able to communicate regardless of  what else is going on unless their is a broadcast storm of some kind or incorrectly configured subnet masks.

 

by: keith_alabasterPosted on 2007-01-05 at 12:11:48ID: 18254450

Agreed.

I would refer back to my post earlier about downloading the free sniffer.

 

by: umcmuPosted on 2007-01-05 at 14:05:02ID: 18255208

Won't ethereal only sniff the traffic from the computer it's on?  If not how do you configure it as I've downloaded it on my PC and played with it a little but it's not very user friendly IMHO...

 

by: keith_alabasterPosted on 2007-01-06 at 00:05:12ID: 18257479

Have you read the read me and used the help file?

You said ALL pc's go down so your PC is as good as any. When you try to connect to something on your network from your pc, what do you see in ethereal?

 

by: umcmuPosted on 2007-01-10 at 10:29:58ID: 18286176

I will try ethereal next time I'm on site which will be next week.

 

by: keith_alabasterPosted on 2007-01-10 at 10:49:24ID: 18286379

:)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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