Imaged Laptop Loses Network Connectivity Intermittently

I have a strange and intermittent connection problem with some of the
laptops in my environment:

Windows 2003 Domain. Internal DNS Servers, WINS and DHCP. All
clients are DHCP enabled -- clients and servers exist on the same
network segment with a 16 bit Subnet Mask. All clients have the same
default gateway configured. Two Closets contain 10 perimeter switches
each for the clients. A Core Cisco 6500 handles the connections in
the server room and VLAN's.

Occasionally users will complain that they can access some network
resources but not others. When I troubleshoot the XP client laptop, I
can ping some network resources fine. Other network resources time
out. For isntance, I can ping the domain controller with no issues,
but the Exchange server pings time out. After some time the problem
clears up on its own.

The problem occurs at different locations in the office, so I've ruled
out a problem with the closet switches. The logs on the core switch,
domain controller and exchange server dson't reveal any problems.
IPCONFIG shows that TCP/IP is configured correctly. Arp -a shows that
there is an entry in the ARP table for the server. New netowrk cables
have been run to rule out a problem with the cable. New cables were
run on the closet switches and core switch as well. We also ran a new
network jack and cable at the user's desk.

All of the laptops in question are of the same model -- Dell D620. All
of the laptops were imaged for us by Dell from an original master.
The problem does not occur with any other models of laptops and none
of the desktops. There are no events in the event log on the clients
-- except that they can't connect to the resource which I already
know. There are no hardware errors. Drivers for the NIC have been
updated. BIOS/Firmware on the laptops have been updated.

Does anyone have ideas about what could be the problem or ways to
troubleshoot this?

Best Regards

On Sep 12, 11:51 am, sillz <beth.sto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a strange and intermittent connection problem with some of the
> laptops in my environment:
>
> Windows 2003 Domain. Internal DNS Servers, WINS and DHCP. All
> clients are DHCP enabled -- clients and servers exist on the same
> network segment with a 16 bit Subnet Mask. All clients have the same
> default gateway configured. Two Closets contain 10 perimeter switches
> each for the clients. A Core Cisco 6500 handles the connections in
> the server room and VLAN's.
>
> Occasionally users will complain that they can access some network
> resources but not others. When I troubleshoot the XP client laptop, I
> can ping some network resources fine. Other network resources time
> out. For isntance, I can ping the domain controller with no issues,
> but the Exchange server pings time out. After some time the problem
> clears up on its own.
>
> The problem occurs at different locations in the office, so I've ruled
> out a problem with the closet switches. The logs on the core switch,
> domain controller and exchange server dson't reveal any problems.
> IPCONFIG shows that TCP/IP is configured correctly. Arp -a shows that
> there is an entry in the ARP table for the server. New netowrk cables
> have been run to rule out a problem with the cable. New cables were
> run on the closet switches and core switch as well. We also ran a new
> network jack and cable at the user's desk.
>
> All of the laptops in question are of the same model -- Dell D620. All
> of the laptops were imaged for us by Dell from an original master.
> The problem does not occur with any other models of laptops and none
> of the desktops. There are no events in the event log on the clients
> -- except that they can't connect to the resource which I already
> know. There are no hardware errors. Drivers for the NIC have been
> updated. BIOS/Firmware on the laptops have been updated.
>
> Does anyone have ideas about what could be the problem or ways to
> troubleshoot this?
>
> Best Regards

Oh yes, and firewalls are enabled but ping is allowed on all servers.