Is this indicative of a LAN card problem or something else?

Hi Trevor
What hub switch or router are you using (make & model)?  Or is it just a crossover cable?
Joseph

Joseph,

Yep, it goes through a Netgear EN104 hub EN104. But, as far as I know, all other PCs on that hub are fine. It's just mine :-(

I think I will start by changing the card, stripping out the network entries and start it all over again.

Cheers everyone for your help, I'll let you know what happens, I may need you again.

Trevor

Gonzaria,

Great minds anmd all that, that is exactly what I tried first. Use AVG on my system so I let that do a full check. Plus I ran AD-Adware and also tried a new cable.

I actually thought this had done the trick, but with 15 mins the problem had arisen again.

Trevor.

Go to the advanced properties of the nic and set the duplex to half or async.

Try using an lmhosts file on the box, use the #PRE and #DOM tags
http://www.realcomputerguy.com/lmhosts.htm
and
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314884
Are you using WINS on your domain?

Hello chaps,

Firstly, many thanks for all your help and advice. This website never ceases to amaze me the way people are willing to help - thanks.

Okay, current state of play. I've taken on board everything that everybody has suggested - changed the card, the hub and NIC properties. Steven, I didn't try yours because I've never had this file setup before in the 4 years that I've had this PC connected to the company LAN and so I'm assuming it isn't this. Okay, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the lmhost file even does - I've often wondered but have never asked as it hasn't seemed necessary.

I've tried all your suggestions plus I've stripped all the networking down to the bare bones leaving just the network drivers, ms logon and TCP/IP protocol. If anything, the problem has got worse. Not only does it crash on connecting to mapped drives (as described in my first message) but it also just stops when it feels like it for no particular reason. This is a tad annoying me being the average software developer who is forever forgetting to save his work.

But here's the twist which may help you pinpoint my problem perhaps. All this only occurs if I logon to our domain i.e. supply a password and click ok at the windows logon prompt. If I click cancel at this point, I do not have this problem. This is all beginning to get very strange for me! No other computer on the LAN exhibits this problem so I assume it isn't a domain or server (NT4) problem.

I know it is hard trying to figure out what is going on on somebody elses PC without being able to see it, so if there is any further info you need please ask!

My last alternative will be to reinstall windows which I really do not have the time to do.

Many thanks again for all your help so far.

Trevor.

>>All this only occurs if I logon to our domain i.e. supply a password and click ok at the windows logon prompt
is the domain running any logon scripts?
what about profiles? Mandatory, roaming or local?
>>just the network drivers, ms logon and TCP/IP protocol.
try removing these and reinstall them

Network problems

Your problem of only been able to conenct briefly sounds like small amounts of data (for example login) are ok and large amounts of data get corrupt.

Typically a hub is half duplex and a switch full duplex.  If gigabit, it is always full duplex.

Is the switch cascaded?

If the problem is dropped connections, packet collisions etc, can you set the port on the hub/switch to auto or half duplex?  On some units this setting may be for all ports not just the one the system is connected too.

This can involve the network design, faulty cables, faulty transceivers faulty NICs (network interface cards), or configuration problems such as full/half duplex mismatches. For example, the following configuration may cause severe network problems:

******************************************
* 10/100 Hub, Switch, Router, etc., with           *
* port configured for auto-negotiation              *
******************************************
                    |
                    |
***********************************************
* end node configured for 100Mbps/Full-Duplex       *
* or 10Mbps/Full-Duplex                                           *
***********************************************

The hub, switch, or router will correctly sense (not auto-negotiate) the 10Mbps or 100Mbps speed.  Since the end node was configured for a specific speed and duplex state, and therefore does not negotiate, the hub, switch, or router will choose the communication mode specified by the 802.3u standard, namely half-duplex.

With one device running at half-duplex and the device on the other end of the connection at full-duplex, the connection will work reasonably well at low levels of traffic. At high levels of traffic the full-duplex device (end node, in this case) will experience an abnormally high level of CRC or alignment errors. The end users usually describe this situation as, "Performance seems to be approximately 1 Mbps!".  Often, end nodes will drop connections to their servers.

Do your logs show that symptom.

Speed detection from a typical switch is
  100BASE-TX Full Duplex
  100BASE-T4
  100BASE-TX
  10BASE-T Full Duplex
  10BASE-T

With both ends set to Auto it will be interesting to see what speed is chosen.  You will need to find this out from the switch (if it is a manageable unit) - which I may not be familiar with.

Are you using static, dynamic or automatic private addressing IP addresses?

Is your Active Directory Native?  Is there an entry in the WINS database for the PDC emulator (and other domain controllers) and is the address of the WINS server assigned by DHCP?

Run WINIPCFG and from the hidden menu <ALT><SPACE> send us all the machines network configurations

Thanks

Joseph

Hi all,

Again, I can't thank you enough for your time and help.

I'll try to go through each of your suggestions since my last postings.

LucF:

I'd tried running this already. The only file it found wrong was setupx.dll. It corrected this, but the problem actually continued to occur after this.

Steven:

It is just a local domain, no roaming or anything unusual. The computer is for me only, nobody else uses it.

I decided that your suggestion of removing everything from Networking was probably the next thing to try. So I stripped everything out. I even replaced the new NetGear card with another new NIC. This time a DLINK DFE-530TX. I then let Windows go back through it's setup, installed all the latest drivers for the NIC that I could find and (please!!!!!!) it seems so far to be working. I've tried all the things that caused problems before and, so far, none have re-appeared. So I guess there was something here. I would imaging that something in the Networking had become corrupt and putting them back from scratch appears to have done the trick.

I guess I should have tried this right from the start, but it's nice to get re-assurance first!

Joseph:

Just to reply to what you've suggested - No the switch isn't cascaded. In fact it is a 10Mbps hub (Netgear EN104) that is connected to an older Ethernet backbone. Shock horror! Financial constraints and the fact that we are in such an old building. The hub is just a plug and play thing, no way of setting it up. Just an uplink/normal button. Slowly, we are changing to wireless networking which is proving to be extremely beneficial in this enviroment. We have to because I don't see many hubs or any network equipment with BNC connectors anymore.

I haven't seen the symptoms you describe, when working the network performance is fine and we are actually transfering large amounts of data around the place. It just always seemed to happen at the specific places I mentioned.

Our IP addressing is dynamic. I just found it better that way. Maybe that is not the best but I have seen difficulties with DHCP on our network most recently involving a wireless remote camera. So I stick to allocating and maintaining the IP addresses myself. I'm confident(ish!) there are no clashes.

No active directory here unfortunately, we are still using NT4. Again, as much as I've tried to persuade the powers that be that it is time to move on, I keep being told that this isn't financially possible, I continually have to work within these constraints which isn't good.

We do not use WINS. Maybe we should? But I don't think our network configuration would warrant it although I maybe wrong. I'm really more of a Software Developer who has adopted the job of IT Manager. Most of what I know about networks is just self taught, I've had no formal training. So some things like WINS are a bit alien to me. Maybe I should ask more questions on here to further my knowledge.

Just for your interest and in case there maybe something still wrong, here is the info from WINIPCFG:

Windows 98 IP Configuration

      Host Name . . . . . . . . . : Trevor.lormaynt
      DNS Servers . . . . . . . . : 158.152.1.58
                                    158.152.1.43
      Node Type . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
      NetBIOS Scope ID. . . . . . :
      IP Routing Enabled. . . . . : No
      WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . : No
      NetBIOS Resolution Uses DNS : Yes

Ethernet adapter :

      Description . . . . . . . . : D-Link DFE-530TX PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev.C)          
      Physical Address. . . . . . : 00-05-5D-75-38-4F
      DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
      IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.254.4
      Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
      Default Gateway . . . . . . : 192.168.254.254
      Primary WINS Server . . . . :
      Secondary WINS Server . . . :
      Lease Obtained. . . . . . . :
      Lease Expires . . . . . . . :

But, as I already said, fingers crossed and all that, it seems to be okay at the moment.

I'm loathed to change anything else just in case it all goes wrong again, and I need to keep my computer working until at least Christmas Eve to finish off some major software projects.

SO TO YOU ALL:

Many thanks again and via your suggestions things seem to be working. I will leave this open until maybe the New Year just in case I need to ask anything further. It all appears well, I will split the points between you all as I appreciate you time, help and advice.

Trevor.