I've got a network with a 2003 DC and two windows 2000 servers. 35 clients, mixed between windows xp and 7-64bit. For the past 48 hours or so the 7 machines randomly lose connection to one of the 2000 servers. This is a transient condition; it corrects itself after a period of time ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes. During this time, the 7 machines are unable to see any of the network shares, the website that is hosted on the machine, and are unable to ping it either by dns address or direct ip address. This may not occur for hours, and then may happen several times in an hour. It appears totally random. While this is happening, the xp machines can see the server just fine. I've examined the logs on some of the 7 machines, the 2000 server, and the 2003 DC, and I can't find anything out of place. There have been no updates applied to any of the machines. I have swapped the cabling on the "disappearing" server all the way back to the switch, and the switches appear to be okay as well. Frankly, I'm baffled. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, I'm having the same problem. Maybe we can help each other out, while awaiting... I started experiencing the same cases roughly about 72/48 hours also.. caused by patch tuesday? I have 2 2003 R2 Servers in domain 1 2003 server not in domain Win 7 machines, randomly connects and disconnects from my 2 IN DOMAIN 2003 server No such problems with my 3rd 2003 server not connected to domain. Things that I did. 1) I opened two brand new Dell V3450 loaded with Win7Pro, not joined domain, and plugged them into the network for trial, still same things. These are 2 new factory loaded, default settings laptops. Laptop A is able to ping both servers, Laptop B cant ping any, trial 2, unplug and replug, both cant ping any, trial 3, Laptop A can connect server A, B can connect server B and vice versa... still completely random connection/disconnection 2) The fresh laptops ruled out patch problems on my Win7 clients 3) With the 2 laptops, I've tried plugging them into different switch, the same switch with my server, and it still fails 4) I have a catalyst switch and 2 3com 4200g switch (latest firmwares) plugging the server and the laptops to any combination of switches produces the same problem 5) Replacing the network cables, no luck 6) Broadcom network adaptor in server is fully patched. I have windows XP clients.. and none of them have any problems at all. Anything that we can share to get this fixed? SInce my 7 clients lost all network connection to the effected servers, all my services, FnP, DNS, AD is not working, not good at all..

Saw this post in Vista thread. Makes SENSE, as all my machine has NetXtreme 57xx NIC cards too! I had some of the same symptoms many of you have, on various platforms I started getting random intermittent NIC connection loss. Of course, the messages were a bit indirect (Domain can't be found, can load CA certs from web...), but all the problems reported jibed with a fundamental problem: LAN connectivity was lost. The loss seemed to be windowed: The computer would function fine for 35 minutes, then would lose LAN connectivity for 12 minutes, then go back on working for 15 minutes, followed by a 7 minute outage. This cycle repeated over and over. The failures started on machines that had no other problems, and had worked fine for years. My platforms were mainly Dell servers (PE2850, PE850) and Dell workstations (Precision and Optiplex) running Win Svr 2003 and XP (all with latest updates and SPs). All the failing machine had Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx gigabit NIC cards. I did myriad tests to find the problem, but was befuddled. If I had 2 NICs in the same machine, they would both act the same way, and this smelled like a config/SW issue. Only replacing the NICs (or the entire PC) fixed the problem. I have a solution which was 100% for me (and which may help others too). This solution has been mentioned in other support issues in other sites, but since it was not directly mentioned here, I though I would post it. ** THE PROBLEM WAS THE BROADCOM ADVANCED CONTROL SUITE/MANAGEMENT PROGRAM ** I had been reading about issues with Broadcom NICs running the management software and Cisco switches. There were recommendations of removing the management software or upgrading to a newer version. Since I really didn't need the features, I removed the management suite. Since the drivers were bundled with the suite I suspected that my NIC would need a reinstall of the driver. But it didn't! After rebooting from the management removal, my hardcoded IP (for my server...) was 0.0.0.0. Apparently, the management program did a little scorched earth policy upon its removal. When I re-entered the IP values, the NIC card came right up. Doing this universally fixed my similar NIC issues. Go figure!