Networking Problems

Ok, I will try my best to explain in detail what is driving me nuts!

At work we have a Windows 2003 server (DHCP, DNS, File Server etc), 1 Windows 2000 Pro workstation and 4 Windows XP Pro workstations. All are connected via 2 old 8 port switches.

The problem is, every now and again the network freezes. It is usually the reception computer (running Windows XP Pro) that freezes first (75% of the time after opening or closing a word document) then this causes the rest of the workstations to freeze. When they freeze you cant access any of the network resources at all and explorer just hangs for about 5 mins then all is fine again.

I checked the Event Viewer on the server and nothing out of the norm in there but on a few of the workstations there are lots of MrxSmb errors. They are not just in there when the freeze occurs but pretty often. This is the MrxSmb error;

The redirector failed to determine the connection type.

Any ideas? This is driving me nuts!

Thanks in advance.

EDIT - Just run 'net stats server' on the server and there are 150 permission violations and i noticed there are 12 timed-out sessions and 72 errored-out sessions.

 

Some articles that may help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q315244
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q267934

 

assuming you receive Event ID 3034, this may help. quoted from www.howtonetworking.com.
Event ID - 3034
Cause: This update helps resolve an issue on computers running Windows XP Service Pack 2. Programs that connect to IP addresses in the loopback address range may not work as expected and you may receive an error message indicating you cannot establish a connection.
Resolution: download WindowsXP-KB884020-x86-enu.exe

 

See:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...d2-5034-4bbb-b74d-ad8430a1f7c8&displaylang=en

For the link where you can actually download that fix if it is the error code in question.

 

Thanks for your help so far. Unfortunately the error code is 3019.
I found those Microsoft articles above but they said it was only information and to ignore it. But I am sure it has something to do with them freezing.

Any other ideas?

 

Have you read the post from MS I put in earlier.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q267934

This has the exact error code you are referring to.

 

Hi Bob,

Yeah I have checked that post. It doesnt actually have a solution.

 

But it does point to some possible ones.

"This message can occur when NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) attempts to query the target device (in this case, the Loopback adapter) for network speed. The Loopback adapter, which does not handle speed negotiation, cannot negotiate the speed and the warning message is reported in the system event log"

So what happens if you manually set the network adapter's speed to match whatever you have for your hub/switch.

 

the download WindowsXP-KB884020-x86-enu.exe should fix the 3019 too., please post back with the result.

 

The actual file can be downloaded from MS at:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/9/749eef31-7d91-4558-88e3-
7bfe92c212fc/WindowsXP-KB884020-x86-enu.exe

 

Shall I update all the windows xp machines?

All the network cards I have manually set to 100mb Full. The switches dont have any settings that I can change, they are auto sensing only.

 

Sorry, I am in the process to move the data from www.chicagotech.net to www.howtonetworking.com. but there is the page. http://www.howtonetworking.com/wineventid.htm

 

You might one to try one and see what happens.

 

I would install it on the problem machine only.

 

Right, I have installed it on the reception machine and cleared the Event Log, lets see what happens!