We have built 40+ windows 7 desktops. They have been deployed in Windows Server 2003 environments. We have a mapped drive to the server's data folder. The Win 7 machines are losing network connectivity intermittantly. It's almost like the connection falls to sleep and will not wake. I can not figure out how to the the network connection (lan adapters) awake and hot

We are using Intel boards and the nic is on board.

Hi, Does issue occur on each Windows 7 machine or certain one? To troubleshoot the issue, please perform the following steps. 1. Upgrade the NIC driver to the latest one. 2. Disable Saving Power function on NIC device. a. Click Start, right click Computer and choose Properties. b. Click Device Manager. c. Navigate to the network adpater, right click it and choose Properties. d. Choose Power Management tab. e. Please uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. f. Restart the computer and test this issue again. What’s the result? Thanks, Novak

Hello Novak, Thank you for your response. We have installed about 40 machines in about 5 locations. The majority(if not all) of the machines are having the issue(some more than others). At times the network browser only sees the local machine. Sometimes it sees nothing. At times it can see all machines but can not access the server data folder. Half the time it works properly and can see and access everything. We have tried various driver versions. In fact Intel recommend we go to an earlier version of the driver. No version seems to fix the problem. The network card is an Intel(R) 82578DM Gigabit Network Connection. Power management: We have unchecked "Reduce Link speed during sytem Idle time. There are for "Wake on Lan" options we probably need to mark them all because the card says: Unless wake on lan options are enabled Intel adapters always allow the computer to power down the device when the computer is hibernating or in standby." We are currently trying to turn off any power down/stand by switches on the OS. I will let you know if the power management adjustments work or help. Are there any other ideas/suggestions? Thanks again, Anthony

I recently purchased 24 Dell Optiplex 380's for two classrooms. I am experiencing the same thing. Sometimes will not be able to access mapped drives upon waking the machine Sometimes will drop a mapped drive while the machine is on. I've been googling for a while (on and off for a week now), no luck so far. I am definitely not upgrading or purchasing new windows 7 boxes until this is fixed. We are on a 2003 domain as well. When it fails I can't access the server via \\servername, I can access it via \\IpAddress eg \\192.168.5.1 I can ping servername and it resolves to the correct IP I have internet connectivity I can't access any network resources via UNC names eg \\servername just by IP Address First Nations Tech Inst

That is pretty much my issue. If I find a solution to the issue I will let you know.

Internet browsing always works, it just drops connection (red X's on mapped drives) to the domain controller which is also our server and does dns, dhcp. It is intermittent which makes it very hard to troubleshoot. It seems to occur more on wake from sleep then normal use, but not always. When it fails I can always access the server via ip address, UNC doesn't work. There are no third party firewalls installed, the computer is fresh from the box. There is no AV installed. DNS works for internet and local machine resolution. We've had no issues with XP pro or Vista Business machines since the server was installed. This only effects windows 7 machines. I've only tested windows 7 pro 32 bit (all we have) This occurs on both the Windows 2003 Server Standard (32 bit), and the Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard 64 Bit domains. First Nations Tech Inst

Hello K. Maracle, I just wanted to note that my situation is almost exactly the same. - New Windows 7 32bit right out of the box - 2003 Standard Servers - DNS works for Internet and local but not intranet - No problems with XP machines - No firewall enabled, however I do have AV - Problem is very intermittent I have suspected DNS issues so I added records for different intranet sites one at a time to the hosts file to see what would happen. I realize this is not a correct fix but I wanted to pinpoint that it was DNS related and it also allows my users to be productive again. I have one user that experiences this often as he is a developer and is constantly browsing intranet sites. I had him alert me as soon as he had the issue so I could then add an entry for the site he was working on in his host file. As soon as i saved the host file he was able to resolve the site name. I am wondering if this is somehow IPv6/DNS related. I am anxiously awaiting a fix for this as I do not want to use host files as a fix. Per Novak's recommendation above, we also updated the NIC driver and turned off power savings.

Hi Anthony, Does the issue persist after modifying the Power management? If the issue persists, please also try the following steps. 1. Temporarily turn off firewall and antivirus program. 2. Restart the problematic machine in Safe Mode with Networking and verify whether the network machine can be accessed. 3. Assure the Server, Workstation and Computer Browser service are started. Hope this helps. Novak

The other steps did not work. I even tried using an Lmhost file thinking it might be a dns issue. The machine still lost access the the network shared folder occasionally. Sometimes the connection is fast as greased lightning. It is like something is interupting the workstation's browser service(LAN). Internet always works perfectly. I will give these fixes a shot Novak.

Anthony, Try updating your hosts file instead of lmhosts. I verified today that this temporarily solves my problem. One of our users was unable to resolve our intranet site. Once I added the site to the hosts file and saved it he was immediately able to open the intranet site. So far I have used this method on 4 pc's and it did the trick. Not a great fix in a large environment but it will have to do for now. Good luck. John