Troubleshooting Advice...

[kdw75]

I have a network of 5 Macs running OSX and 5 Windows 7 machines. We also have 10 printers on the network. This runs through 2 switches and a Linksys router hooked up to our cable connection.

The problem we notice frequently is that our Windows 7 machine that we use to get files off the Macs seems to frequently lose its connection to them for a minute or so then it gets it back. During that time though the internet works fine on both the machines.

Any advice on troubleshooting this or where to look?

 

[hang-the-9]

You have a pretty large setup here, you should use a central server to store your data not connect to the local computers.

Check the event log on the computer to see if there are any errors.

 

[kdw75]

We have a network drive that stores our files but we frequently have in progress work that is created on the Macs and then pulled up on our Windows 7 machine for different reasons. That is when the problem rears its head. The Windows 7 machine seems to lose all local computer access even other Windows machines. The machine in question was also recently upgraded with a new MB and CPU so I doubt it is a hardware issue.

It seems to happen randomly, but generally during an 8 hour day it will happen 4-6 times.

 

[kdw75]

I found this message numerous times in the event viewer. Not exactly sure if the times correspond to the problem, but it looks like it could.

The start type of the Background Intelligent Transfer Service service was changed from auto start to demand start.

Not sure what this means or if it is relevant.

 

[hang-the-9]

See if you can narrow down the times. Also, make sure you have all power management settings to off, especially for the network card. They are often set to allow the computer to shut it off to save power. It's usually in the options of the network card as well as in the power settings in Windows.

 

[kdw75]

Looks like the power savings mode was enabled. Hopefully this was the problem. I could have sworn that I had turned that off ages ago.

I will see if that works.