=?Utf-8?B?SGVtbXk=?= <Hemmy@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:78740BC2-92F6-47FA-800E-DAE914AF23CC@microsoft.com:

> I support a LAN with approx 25 WinXP Pro SP2 clients and 2 Windows
> 2003 SP2 servers. The servers are connected via GB and all
> workstations via 100Mbps. I have 2 Dell OptiPlex 745 XPPro SP2
> machines that experience network drops quite frequently, sometimes
> up to 4 times/hour. They lose their connection to a mapped drive
> and are unable to ping either server when this happens. The
> connection is usually restored within about 30 seconds.
>
> I've tried different nics, updating nic drivers, swapping patch
> cables, changing ports on the switch, even changing the 48+2 port
> switch without success so far. Could this be a cabling issue
> between these two machines? Any good network diag tools I could
> run on these machines to track down this issue?
>

My guess is that another computer on the network jumps in with a fixed
IP address that just happens to be same as an existing computer --
knocking it off the network. Make sure that every computer on the
subnet is set up with DHCP and any fixed-IP computers do not have
addresses in the assignment range of your DHCP server.

HTH,
John