Windows Vista network share/name stops working at random times but can still ping the system name
I have two identical systems purchases from Dell, both systems came with Vista Proffesional installed. Both systems were configured the same, the same software installed and setup for two people. Person A has used the system without a single problem for over a month, Person B has had countless issues with what i would call network 'timeouts'. He can use the machine fine for a few hours, but randomly it will lose access to system names on the network. We have a SERVER1 system that he has a drive mapped to, and has a database program he uses that accesses the SERVER1 share, so he's mapped to \\SERVER1\DB and this will work for hours and hours, until he tries to do something like normal and the program crashes since it lost connection with the database. At this point he cannot do anything with files on SERVER1, he cannot map a drive to the system. Now the weird part! He can ping SERVER1 just fine, and he can even open a share using the IP address, \\192.168.1.1\DB and that works fine, but he cannot use the name. All the while, Person A who has the same system as Person B can use SERVER1 just fine. We have no firewall, no firewall software and its a very small network with no name conflicts. When the system "loses" the name the only resolution is a full system reboot, disabling the NIC or releasing the IP and renewing it does not help. I'm leaning towards bad hardware, but the fact that he can ping the server name but not access it through a windows share, to me points to something software based. I've read a few other threads similar to this, and nothing has worked so far. I've tried disabling auto-tuning, i've tried the changing the autodisconnect registry setting in lanmanserver and that hasn't helped either. Also he has full internet access once this happens, DNS works, and he can send and receive email as well as browse any website. This is the KB i tried adjusting the registry settings off of: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/297684 and it hasn't helped any. If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it, at this point I'm about to replace the hardware and would like to avoid that if its a software problem.
October 15th, 2009 5:55pm

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