windows 7 Users losing connection to network in windows 7

[Guest MarkJohnson_1969]

Hi

 

 

I am running a small network using SBS 2011 - approx 20 users, who are all on Windows 7 workstations. We use many bespoke written programs written in Access, whereby the databases are kept within a shared folder on the network which the client software accesses.

 

We have an ongoing, intermittent connection issue which is driving me crazy. Our users report that they have lost connection to the microsoft database they are using - curiously this has the effect that many users all crash out at the same time - once one goes, normally everybody crashes. This also affects other commercial software - for example excel (which will 'hang') and Pegasus Opera (our accounts package, which is a foxpro database and will crash) - so the problem is not unique to the our own bespoke software. Red crosses appear on the users network drives after a crash (and then virtually instantly reconnect). I ran a ping program - pinging at 1 second intervals, which did not show any loss of connection on the users workstation when a crash occurred. The crashes seem to occur during heavy access database usage - normally saving a large piece of work which updates the database. We might get multiple crashes in 1 day and then no crashes for a few days! We are compacting the databases regularly.

 

My remote IT advisor suggested a problem with the network - however the server is apparently not showing any unusual error messages, we have replaced the network switch and also swapped over to the other network card that came with the server, which is a Dell - approx 3 years old.

 

We initially thought it was our anti-virus (webroot) as the problem seemed to start when we migrated from Avast to Webroot. We have now removed webroot from the server and workstations and are using security essentials only, but the problem still occurs.

 

My current IT consultant cannot identify what the cause of the problem is. Can anybody suggest a solution - or software to install on the server to at least try and point me in the right direction? I am not a techie at all, but can point any useful ideas back to my IT consultant.

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Thanks

 

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