Precision M50 Network disconnecting

Question

Can anyone throw some light on this problem?

We have a 2 month old Presision M50 running XP Pro connecting to a W2K Domain.

Problem is, every now and then (most days) it disconnects itself from the network for no apparant reason. The auto disconnect for mapped network drives has been disabled so that is not the cause. I have seen it completely drop the network 4 times in as many minutes and then try to reconnect, sometimes successfully but most times the document being worked on is trashed.

The laptop is plugged into a cport II docking station using that network adapter but in an attempt to find the problem, i plugged in the onboard nic and the problem is still around. At this time the guy has been told to run it out of the docking station to see if it makes any difference.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks, cheers for looking

Dave

prombour · Answer

I have the same problem on 5 Precision 340 Workstations . See my message reply to cooker007 on Sept.22

Ioian · Answer

I do not see any results on this issue, so I am going to add myself to the lot. In my case, it disconnects from Novell servers which then drops the users drive mappings. I have the issue on the D600 laptops as well. I have already checked to make sure the network card does not allow power save option (Network Places - Select network connection properties (right-click the icon "Local Connection..." and select properties) - select "configure" button - go to Power Management" tab and remove all checks in the check boxes.)

I am also using the cport replicator.

prombour · Answer

Hi,

Our problem is still not solved.

We have tried to change the master board card on one of the stations , without any significative result. We still have the same error message ( error on start of 3COM service ) when starting W2K on the station. After many discussion with DELL's hotline, it seems that we should re-install W2K as the initial install made by DELL seem to be made with a wrong ghost.

We are now about to install a test station to replace one of the stations, and then re-install W2K to see if this solves the issue..

Wait and see ...

prombour · Answer

Hi The 'ghost' is the way the system is implemented by DELL on their PC'S . I don't know what the exact support it is. Maybe it is a CD or a hard disk physically copied on the new PC's.   Anyway , the one used to implement the system on the PC in the DELL's assembling center seems to have been  defectuous over a certain period of time. (errors in the 3COM firmware or driver) Regards Patrice

Ioian · Answer

Thanks for the information Prombour - we also are rebuilding from scratch, but moved to the D600 notebook since it is the most prominent unit right now. I am not going to use the DELL restore (never do anyway) and see if it may resolve some of the network disconnect issues. I will try to post my results just in case it may help someone else.

Thanks again

Ioian · Answer

Prombour - Could you elaborate on the 'wrong ghost' issue? It may pertain to our problem as well. Thanks and Best Regards

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Precision M50 Network disconnecting

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