Pinging issue on a couple of windows 2003 servers

[Guest Sara L]

Here is the scenario:

 

I have three 3Com 4200G series switches. I have 8 servers. All servers

are HP Proliant DL380, 360, or 320 servers. All servers are connected to

the same 3COM switch. I have 2 APC Smart-UPS 5000 RM XL. These are plugged

into the same 3COM switch. I'm having an issue in which some of the servers

can ping both of these APC devices, some can only ping 1 of the APC devices,

and some cannot ping either of them. All servers can ping each other. I

can't figure out why some of the servers can ping the APC devices and some

can't. It doesn't make any sense. The 3COM switches are not specifically

configured for anything special. All ports are the standard default settings,

and set to Auto-negotiate. I can't find anything in the APC Network Card

Mgmt interfaces that would need to be configured to allow pings from a certain

server. One thing to note is that from the APC Interface, I also can't ping

the server that has the communication problem with the APC device. It's

like they are blocking each other or something. Also, it would seem that

one of the servers can't even ping the network switch that it is plugged

into, but can ping the other 2 switches just fine.

 

The Windows firewall is not running on the servers. I'm not sure if there

is still some specific port(s) being blocked. When I have configured the

servers from scratch, I always use the HP SmartStart CD. After the OS is

installed, there is a window that pops up talking about whether or not you

want to open all the server ports. I thought I had always hit yes, but I'm

wondering if I didn't or something, and I have no idea how to get that window

to pop back up. Is there a registry setting on the server that I can change

to allow all traffic without using the Windows Firewall config? I did actually

start the Windows firewall/ICS service so I could check to allow ping requests

and such, then I disabled it again, but that didn't do anything for me.

 

I'm really stumped. I am going to try and move one of the problem servers

to a new port on the switch to see if that makes a difference. Unfortunately,

this site is remote, and I have to have one of my people there do that in

the morning. It definitely could be some goofy setting with the 3Com, and

I might have to call 3Com support, but just curious if anyone might have

seen this before with 3COM switches?

 

Thanks,

 

Sara