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!!!
