Help! Network Problems!

Here is an article from MS TechNet that may give you some ideas:


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The information in this article applies to:
 
 - Microsoft Windows 95
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SYMPTOMS
========
 
You may receive the following error message if the network disconnects
during certain network operations:
 
   SYSTEM ERROR
   Network Error on Drive <X>
 
When you receive this error message, clicking Cancel or Retry has no
effect. Pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE also has no effect. You must turn the
computer off and back on, or press its reset switch, to restart the
computer.
 
STATUS
======
 
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Windows 95. We
are researching this problem and will post new information here in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.
 
MORE INFORMATION
================
 
Note that this problem does not occur when you are using a real-mode
Novell NetWare client such as NETX.
 
This error can be triggered by a program trying to access an open file
handle that has become invalid due to the network connection being lost.
If the program tries to access the handle a finite number of times,
clicking Cancel repeatedly will eventually return control to the program.
If the program tries to access the handle in an infinite loop, there is
no way to return control to the program or the system.
 
This error has also been reported to occur if a local, external hard disk
is disconnected or turned off while a program has files on the drive open.
 
KBCategory: kbnetwork kbprb kberrmsg kbbuglist
KBSubcategory: win95
Additional reference words: 95 unrecoverable hangs
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Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1996.


They also basically say that this is a known problem with NT 3.51, and unless a hotfix or service pack has fixed it by now, I don't think it will get fixed.

regards,
dimitri

Surprise, surprise...it's another win95 bug.  And by Micro$oft's own admission, it doesn't appear when you use real software such as Novell's products.

Still, your basic problem lies with a loss of a network connection, which can be any number of things. You need to examine your network statistics to see if you are experiencing high numbers of collisions and retries.  You could have a bad connector, or a physical segment of the network not up to spec.  Other typical contributing problems are bad NICs, connections too close together, etc.

Also, user behaviours, such as powering a system off while it still has files locked on the server, etc.  

Sometimes there is no magic silver bullet, even though the marketing literature makes such claims.  Start by checking the basic health level of your network.