— We are running 2 Netware 5.1 sp4 servers.
— Clients are mostly WINNT 4.0 sp6 with some W2K and WXP.
— Novell Clients are mostly 4.83 with some 4.81. All are TCP/IP only, no IPX.
— Switches are Cisco 2950’s, dual homed to 2 Cisco 4006’s. Servers are dual connected to each 4006 and clients are single connected to a 2950.
— Clients login to the “nearest” server and attach to the other.
— Here’s the problem: Recently, clients began losing connection to only 1 of the Netware servers. It’s always the same server and they are usually able to reconnect by launching the Novell client and logging in again. A pattern is yet to emerge. Clients that print frequently are the ones that report the problem most frequently but it has hit just about everyone at one time or another. Connections to other servers running Unix/Sybase, NT4.0/Exchange 5.5, NT4.0/Oracle, W2K and the other Novell server remain intact. We’ve had moderate success on some workstations by turning file caching off at the workstation and by moving the workstation to another switchport. The problem still persists but does not seem to be as severe. When an episode occurs, a Sniffer indicates both the workstation and the server begin re-transmission of un-acknowledged packets. The problem first appeared when we introduced a new W2K application server and removed a NT4.0 server that performed the same function. The NT server was a domain controller while the W2K server is simply a member server. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
