Flakey Appleshare

[rgn22]

Can someone explain to me why some computers show up on the network only some of the time? This is a really simplified question because it simply doesn't make sense. The same computer will show up an hour later, although nothing changed.

I checked network settings, made sure sharing was turned on, IP's are assigned, Internet is accessable, can print over the network, but sometimes other computers are invisible.

I give up.

[gsahli]

Can you tell us more about your network? What computers, what operating systems are they using, etc? When you say they are invisible, do you mean appletalk or Samba, or have you "pinged" from one to another?

[rgn22]

My apologies...We have about 50 computers at a small private school, all Macs, and they are a collection of older iMacs, a few eMacs, a few G3 iBooks, some G3 desktops, some G4 desktops, and 2 G5 iMacs. Recently added a few of the new Intel Macbooks. The OS's range from OS 9.2 to 10.4.

When trying to connect to other computers, simply stated, sometimes the computer that I attempt to connect to does not show up on the network. Sometimes they do show up. Additionally, seemingly randomly, the network goes down for a few minutes, and then comes back. Could be the DSL provider, but i'm not sure. As I am a teacher/tech support I don't have a lot of time for diagnosing.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Are you, perchance, using Linksys-branded switches/routers/hubs?

[rgn22]

We do have one Linksys router that connects 2 printers, 3 desktops and a Comsifter. Otherwise, we have 2 Airport Extreme base stations, and an older Airport base station connected via ethernet. We are not using any wireless bridging (not yet, at least...but I plan on setting it up soon to extend the range of our wireless network.)

[ElDiabloConCaca]

The first thing I would suspect is the Linksys routers -- some older models had trouble routing AppleTalk packets -- I ran into this at a pre-press house that had a network of 6 Mac computers... they would intermittently lose network functionality.

Can you try removing the Linksys routers from the network and see if the problems persist?

[rgn22]

Is there a brand of router that tends to work better with Macs?