One of my customers has an office with one Win2003 SBS server, running Exchange 2003, DNS and is the local file server on a Dell PowerEdge 800. There are 7 desktops on the network and 4 laptops. The PC hardware ranges from a brand new laptop, 2 year old Dell pc down to very old PCs, that are only just good for the typical office work going on, the ones that are not XP capable run Win2K.
I took over the IT service last fall, and have upgraded the network as needed, reinstalled windows on 7 of those old PCs, the rest of them may not be worth an upgrade so they are just maintained in working order, no windows reinstall for them.
Lately I’ve gotten complaints of intermittend network outages/problems. Where the internet connection goes down for 10 – 120 seconds, sometimes you only notice as MSN has to reconnect. But most of the time you get an annoying halt on everything you do.
My troubleshooting so far has involved our ISP, which maintains that there is no physical problem with our line. Replacing our ADSL router with a similar one, same setup (same problems). I also reconnected the network wiring to patch panels connected to a 10/100 switching hub – which I have also replaced (with a different model, same problem).
None of the PCs or the server seem to have an problem that might cause this.
I also had the router send me an email with connection history, but that has not helped me either.
I’m a bit frustrated now in dealing with this as it has taken rather a long time.
My question is: am I missing a step in my troubleshooting effort
Also, how can I monitor all network traffic (tcp/ip packets etc) in order to determine where the problem lies.
Also, could this be caused by any sort of DoS attack, causing such disruptions.
Best regards,
SThormar
