Internet works, LAN usually doesn't
This issue started about a week ago. Only a specific coupling of computers has dropped connections on my network but with one of them outside the network they work perfectly. As far as I know, there have been no changes to any settings on my router (which is running PFsense and has worked flawlessly for the past 6 months) nor any of the computers I have been testing (including but not limited to system and driver updates). None of the systems have a firewall (even windows firewall is disabled) nor AV nor any other ad/spyware removing software (all removed for testing of this problem). Computer A is a desktop running W7, Computer B is a laptop running XP, Computer C is a desktop running XP, and Computer D is a laptop running W7. Computer A is custom built using an AMD nforce4 mobo and computer B is an EEE 1000h. Computer A is running Ubuntu in VMware Player using bridged networking so that it is directly attached to the network. SSH is forwarded to the VMware machine. Both on and off the network I can access the VMware machine with all of these machines. As well, for this issue, file sharing also works (for the sake of testing, port forwarding for windows file sharing is also setup and known to work). The issue arises between A and B. When on the network A and B cannot keep a connection to one another. I can initiate file sharing between the two on the network and browse through the folders for as long as I want. When actually transferring files the connection will drop within 5 seconds of the transfer starting. A similar effect occurs using putty (tried stable versions .59 and .60, both of which I have no issues anywhere else with) where I will login to the VMware machine and only when on the network the connection will drop about 2 minutes into the session. I have tested this both with putty idle and transferring data (using the command "find /", it usually doesn't finish the command before the connection drops). When taking B outside the network (there are open wireless APs around me, so I use those for testing) everything works perfectly. I can transfer files completely without any problems and I can run putty for as long as I want (I ran a loop of "find /" for 20 minutes). I have checked through the logs on A and B, there is an error that pops up which is known to kill internet connections and file sharing, but it has only occurred a couple times and never when I've been running these tests (I'll look up the error and post it once I get home). The network is setup as such: |modem| - |router| - |wirelessAP/switchA| - |switchB| - |switchB| - Computer A - |switchB| - Computer C - |switchB| - |wirelessAP/switchC| - |wirelessAP/switchC| - Computer B - |wirelessAP/switchC| - Computer D I have tried both wired and wireless connections for Computer B and I have tried using the other wireless AP. I have considered that it could be a hardware issue or a driver issue, but then why would it only affect data transfers between A and B? Phew, that was long-winded and probably way too much info, but I think it describes the problem well enough. Hopefully someone can point me in a possible direction to fix this issue.
April 21st, 2010 6:07pm

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