jebarr
asked on
Duplicate Name Exists on the Network?
Recently, most of the 40 or so pc's on my network began displaying "A duplicate name exists on the network" upon booting up. I am 100% sure that no duplicate names do in fact exist. I am running W2k server w/ DHCP & DNS. However, WINS is not an installed service, so I don't believe that is the problem. The most perplexing thing is that no configurations changed before this started. Most of our functionality is there, but a few of the mapped drives, and viewing network resources are not working. Any help is greatly appreciated.
rindi
Try resetting the leases of your DHCP Server. Something else that could cause this is a PC crashed, and the server hasn't noticed that it has gone. When trying to log back on, the server thinks the pc is online still and will send the "duplicate" message.
ASKER
I will attempt the DHCP release. However, the PC suggestion seems unlikely, as this is occurring to most of the PC's. Thank you for your prompt response, by the way.
ASKER
Resetting the DHCP leases didn't resolve the problem (nor did restarting the DC). Any other ideas?
Sometimes a bad switch or a bad port on a switch can also cause this behaviour, or if a port is set to a certain speed or duplex mode and the connecting network card isn't set the same. Usually you get the least problems if everything is set to "auto".
look in your DNS lists...and make sure there are no duplicate host and PTR records.
clear all of the dns record and start over a new record, every computer that restart itself will register himself on the dns and dhcp again.
ASKER
I guess I should add that I'm currently in the process of deploying active directory. Only a few of our PC's are even in directory (though they are using DHCP). Even the ones not registering with DNS are displaying the error.
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ASKER
My God, Speedy, you are a genius. It never even occurred to me that I had plugged in a sonicwall firewall recently to begin configuring it. Actually, it seems that the time is probably right. As I type this, I've removed it from the network, & we'll know Monday if that was the solution (but I'm willing to bet it is).
ASKER
6 days out, & still no problems. Seems like the Sonicwall was the cause. Thanks all for your efforts.