Question : Temporary Drop in Network Connectivity

I have had a problem for the last 3 or 4 weeks that I just cannot figure out.  It started out as people being kicked off the file server and I believed it was a server issue.  However, nothing proved to be a problem the deeper I looked into it.  Plus if they got kicked off with in 10seconds or so they would be reconnected.  Sometimes these drops go unnoticed because the are only a few seconds in duration.

After further investigation this is a network wide issue.  I have the following tools running PRTG - in which I monitor SNMP traps from 4 different servers that I have and it tells me when the network drops, Wireshark - giving me the packet sniffer which to be honest my ability to read the packets is very limited, and Network Probe - this gives me detail of what is going on at a individual host or ip basis ie Bytes recieved, Multi/broadcast, and name resolution.

With all these tools combined I have found that the network drops during the day and night no matter if anyone is here or not.  I have moved the PSTs that were on the network to individual local drives so that I can rule that out.  I have found using the tools that a few workstations had spyware so I removed them with SuperAntiSpyware, but none were major spayware.

I found on one of my servers a print driver that is no longer physically here was sending out multicast trying to find the printer.  I removed it and the multicast reduced from that server, which so happens to be my exchange server.

I have 2 linksys switches, 1 24 port gig and 1 48 port with 4 gig, and a Dell Powerconnect 48 port with 2 gig ports.  Spanning Tree is disabled on all and by disabling that has seemed to improve this, kind of.  I thought it may have been a bad switch but I ruled that out too.  Getting into the switches has shown me that they are functioning properly and there are no dropped packets.

About 5 weeks ago I installed a new Sonicwall router replacing a Cisco PIX 506e.  This issue almost coincides with that install but I think I have ruled out the Sonicwall but can't be for certain.

I am frustrated, confused, and exausted.  If anyone has any suggestoins for me plesae suggest it.  If anyone is in the Lexington, KY area and would like to offer their expertiese on this matter I would appreciate it.

Also, it took 2-3 minutes to copy a 6MB file from my file server to my desktop.

Thank you.

Answer : Temporary Drop in Network Connectivity

It sounds like some latency issues between offices.  I would have your provider monitor the connections between the remote offices as well.