Here's the situation:
I was called in by a client because of computer problems. At first, it seems that it was a desktop problem that only a few users were having. I did some spyware checks and cleanup, and checked out some other things. While I was doing that, stuff started crashing around me. There are several Quickbooks users, and their software would all lock up and crash their computers. One or more times, everyone in the office would freeze up at the same time.
They are on a SBS2003 server running XP Pro with Active Directory. Here's the other factor: their server has had a lot of problems, some disk errors etc. and they had been advised to replace it or allow me to do an overhaul on it with a temp replacement. Nothing new has shown up on the server that would indicate that the problem has worsened. (the server hosts the company's files, including Quickbooks)
There are also some other peer-to-peer type db aps that they run which also seem to be crashing and freezing up. Error messages usually say lost connection or check for disk problems on those. Quickbooks was occasionally doing a "you lost connection to your file" error.
The third factor is that they tell me they occassionally hear a steady alarm or beeping sound from time to time from some locations where there are UPSs (rather old) hooked up at workstations and in the server room. The switch is less than a year old, but the fans were blocked.
I have rebooted the server, I updated them to SP1, and checked on other things. They had been having problems with C: filling up, and their CALs would disappear, but we cleared off some space for them, and things were working sort of normally for a while.
While I understand there are lots of overall problems here (they ran to the store and bought me an appropriate temp machine to be a server for me to migrate to while we overhaul their current one with new hard drives, etc.), I just need to get them back up and running so I don't have to spend all night and all weekend running around like a retard trying to rebuild their whole network.
I'm considering trying a new switch just for fun. What other network problems can you guys think of that could crash all the computers at once, and crash connections to aps on the server? Any thoughts are appreciated.
