[magic112]

Hi Guys,

Okay.

So, the problem that we are having is with one of our 2008 Boxes and what it seems to be doing is about once every week we have to restart it as it seems to mysteriously kick-itself off the network i.e. it cannot be contacted by any other networked computer.

Now, for the moment all this box is doing is file-sharing, however, this is beginning to become a problem as we I cannot keep restarting this unit on a weekly basis. I have tried looking through the logs but nothing seems to be indicating why the connection is dropping.

Note: The internet can always be used on it, even when the other clients cannot contact it?


Any help would be appreciated

[tehcamel]

any patterns ?
when it "drops off" - do you mean it no longer replies to ping either?

[wullieb1]

First things first. Update your NIC drivers.

[Blood]

Have you assigned a static IP address? I had an issue recently where 2 clients experienced similar behaviour. They were unable to get addresses via DHCP but I had configured the alternate address so that Internet access was possible. So, no local access when the failover address kicked in.

When I assigned a static IP address and manually configured DNS, gateway etc, they worked fine.

Turned out that one of the switches between them and the DHCP server was in an error state. Turning it off, then on again fixed it.

Edit:
Whoops - please delete this. If it was a dodgy switch it wouldn't work for a week then fail again.

[DewlanceWindowsVPS]

Maybe your Internet cable or hardware is faulty but If your problem fix by restart then add a schedule to restart your network on every 6 day?

Using a static IP is good idea(as suggested by Blood)

[magic112]

I have configured the server to use a static IP address and everything else is also manually configured... Seems very weird to be honest

Either or, I shall try and update the NIC drivers and see if that helps

And yes by 'Drop-Off' it no longer replies to pings either, the unit must be restarted before any other client can gain, or even ping the machine.

[Blood]

How do the clients connect? Can you explain your network topology - is it a single subnet for example? DFS or UNC path shares?

Did you compare an ipconfig /all from when access was fine and from when it dropped off the network?

[Edit]
Also, when you ping the machine do all variations fail - ip address, name and FQDN?