No wireless router. Standard Lynksys RPsomething. I tried static IP addresses and it was worse. While it seems like it must be a DHCP issue i am not convinced. I feel like a retard. I manage this guys office network with 3 servers, 12 workstations and 6 printers. I cant get the 2 computers at his home to cooperate.

Persist. Hang in there, Vincent. The solution will either be so obvious you couldn't have imagined it, or it be something as arcane as the percentage of left-handedness of the person turning on the computer, especially if they have a cup of coffee in the other hand.

Sorry you're on the hot seat, but I bet we will all want to know the answer when you find it. I know I will!

On the obvious side, a completely silly wild-ass guess. Are all four pairs of CAT5 used for all processes? Could an intermittent bad wire connection somehow get in the way of booting, especially if the boot process sends data any differently from the way data is sent once the system is up and running? This sounds like a dumb question to me, but it looks in a totally different area, and that might be what you need.

Best of luck and concentrated consciousness.

Any switches or hubs on the network besides the router? What is the signal level of the cable coming into the modem? Does the printer have firmware that can be updated? What make and model of printer is it? If HP what version of the software? PCL5e or PCL6? Are they PCs or Macs?

We've had many problems with inadequate signal level into a client's house.

Do you have a network tester/certifier? Can you test the link to the printer or to the computers? Did you make your own cables or are they premade patch cables?

I agree with setting the printer to a static IP address. With DHCP and an HP printer you will eventually lose the printer. If your DHCP server sends out IPs to 192.168.1.101 and above then set the printer for anything below that.

no other switches. Signal is fine. 2 dells and a Vaio laptop. it is an hp printer but I dont know what the firmware version is. Have a tester not a certifier though. Have remade all connections. Custom cables. DHCP addresses are 101-125 printer is 150.

Ernie...I am starting to believe it must be something painfully obvious.
This lady will not leave the computers on beacuse she says it wastes energy. She drives an excursion.

When their internet "goes down" can they still access the network?

Have you tried hooking up the printer to a local computer? Does the problem go away?

If you can reproduce the problem check to see if you can ping all available addresses, including the modem.

Heres a great program for automated pinging. It has helped me with many painful network issues.

freeware: [Link: ipscan.sourceforge.net]

Certain cable modems will actually shut down when the signal is to strong. We had a situation where it happened every night. Replaced the modem with another brand and the problem was fixed.

Well, let's see, it could be a ton of things...

First off, when the internet connection goes down, can you ping outside connections through IP address and resolve names against the DNS server? You may still have connectivity, but are unable to resolve DNS names, so they technically will see the internet as being *down*.

Secondly, are you able to use the internal network by either printing, pinging other workstations, etc? If not, what happens when you do an ipconfig at the command prompt? Are you resolving DHCP addresses or are the workstations coming up with the alternate IP addressing scheme (169.242.XXX.XXX). If so, you have a DHCP problem. If you're getting appropriate IP addresses in the DHCP range, make sure you do a ipconfig /renew just to check that you are getting connectivity to the server/router.

Make sure that all router ports are set for 100/Full and the workstations are set to 100/Full (want to make sure there are no CRC errors flooding the router). For that matter, you may want to check the printer network connection that it's set to 100/Full (or 10/Half, or whatever the router port is set to). *NEVER* use automatic port speed/duplex settings. I don't use Linksys for routing in my home, so I don't know what settings they have that you can change (I have some old 3COM switches that I use, but they're completely configurable).

Answering these should help out the troubleshooting...

Also check and see if AOL was previously used on the machine. If it wasn't completely uninstalled, the (now unused) AOL packet driver can cause chaos with DHCP on some consumer routers. Manually remove the AOL branded entries and reboot all the gear.

I second edlee's recommendations. Go to a machine that is not working and run "ipconfig" from the DOS command prompt. If it comes up with the 169.whatever then you have lost communications between the PC and the DHCP server (the router). If it has a good address (192.168.1.x by default on the Linksys unless you have changed it) then you need to log into the router and check its WAN status. Log into it by connecting your laptop directly to it, not wireless and see if it connects. If it does connect and you can log into the router (192.168.1.1) check the WAN status to see if it is a valid IP address (not all zeros). If it is zeros the router is not getting the WAN address from the modem. To determine which one is at fault, connect the customer's computer directly to the modem for the night and see if it is still connected the next day.

If you cannot connect to the router then try and connect your laptop directly to the modem. If you cannot get an address from the modem then reboot the modem and then reboot your laptop. If you then get an address it is the modem not handing out its WAN address and get a new modem.

Always a good idea to set network print ervers to static IPs outside the DHCP range. 192.168.1.100 to .149 by default on Linksys.

bad cable modem. Wouldnt you know it. LOL

Sweet. But, got lotsa ideas on LAN tShooting, thanks. Can't wait to geek out on that IPlogging app.