sudden peer-peer issues

I have a small (10 wkstn) network on peer-peer using Workgroups. Mixed
XP/2000/98 network. all of a sudden, some computers are having difficulty
seeing others on the network. They'll be ok one day, then suddently some
puters will drop out of their network view. This stuffs up printing too.

What could be the cause of this and how can i fix it?

Sounds like you have a cabling issue or a dying NIC.

Carey

"diamondia" wrote in message
...
I have a small (10 wkstn) network on peer-peer using Workgroups. Mixed
XP/2000/98 network. all of a sudden, some computers are having difficulty
seeing others on the network. They'll be ok one day, then suddently some
puters will drop out of their network view. This stuffs up printing too.

What could be the cause of this and how can i fix it?

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 21:13:02 -0800, diamondia
wrote:

I have a small (10 wkstn) network on peer-peer using Workgroups. Mixed
XP/2000/98 network. all of a sudden, some computers are having difficulty
seeing others on the network. They'll be ok one day, then suddently some
puters will drop out of their network view. This stuffs up printing too.

What could be the cause of this and how can i fix it?

An intermittent view problem like this, especially in a mixed LAN (XP/2K/98), is
possibly a browser issue (no I am not talking about Internet Explorer). The
Win98 browser does not work well on a LAN with the Win 2K/XP browser.

Pick the 2 or 3 Win2K/XP computers that are online the most, or are most
reliable, and designate them the browsers. Make sure the browser service is
running on each browser computer. Control Panel - Administrative Tools -
Services. Verify that the Computer Browser, and the TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper,
services both show with Status = Started. Disable the browser on all other
computers, especially the Win9x ones. See this web page for instructions on
disabling the browser on Win9x:
http://cms.simons-rock.edu/faq_by_subtopic/node138.html

Power all computers off. Then power the browser computers on, and then the
others.

The Microsoft Browstat program will show us what browsers you have in your
domain / workgroup, at any time.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305

You can download Browstat from either:
http://www.dynawell.com/reskit/microsoft/win2000/browstat.zip
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/staff/manual/rcc/tools/browstat.zip

Browstat is very small (40K), and needs no install. Just unzip the downloaded
file, copy browstat.exe to any folder in the Path, and run it from a command
window, by "browstat status". Make sure all computers give the same result.

For more information about the browser subsystem (very intricate), see:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188001
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winntas/deploy/prodspecs/ntbrowse.mspx

--
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

thank you very much. I'll give that a go.

"Chuck" wrote:

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 21:13:02 -0800, diamondia
wrote:

I have a small (10 wkstn) network on peer-peer using Workgroups. Mixed
XP/2000/98 network. all of a sudden, some computers are having difficulty
seeing others on the network. They'll be ok one day, then suddently some
puters will drop out of their network view. This stuffs up printing too.

What could be the cause of this and how can i fix it?

An intermittent view problem like this, especially in a mixed LAN (XP/2K/98), is
possibly a browser issue (no I am not talking about Internet Explorer). The
Win98 browser does not work well on a LAN with the Win 2K/XP browser.

Pick the 2 or 3 Win2K/XP computers that are online the most, or are most
reliable, and designate them the browsers. Make sure the browser service is
running on each browser computer. Control Panel - Administrative Tools -
Services. Verify that the Computer Browser, and the TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper,
services both show with Status = Started. Disable the browser on all other
computers, especially the Win9x ones. See this web page for instructions on
disabling the browser on Win9x:
http://cms.simons-rock.edu/faq_by_subtopic/node138.html

Power all computers off. Then power the browser computers on, and then the
others.

The Microsoft Browstat program will show us what browsers you have in your
domain / workgroup, at any time.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305

You can download Browstat from either:
http://www.dynawell.com/reskit/microsoft/win2000/browstat.zip
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/staff/manual/rcc/tools/browstat.zip

Browstat is very small (40K), and needs no install. Just unzip the downloaded
file, copy browstat.exe to any folder in the Path, and run it from a command
window, by "browstat status". Make sure all computers give the same result.

For more information about the browser subsystem (very intricate), see:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188001
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winntas/deploy/prodspecs/ntbrowse.mspx

--
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.