Hi folks, I need a little help...

I have a EX470 hooked up through a Netgear DGN2000 router. Recently the DGN2000 LED started showing an amber led for the connection. The DGN2000 manual says this "The Local port has detected a link with a 10 Mbps device". Also the network LED on the EX470 is now off. I can still connect to the server but the connection is very slow. This possibly started after a power outage during a thunderstorm but I'm not sure. I use my server mostly for backups and file storage so I may not have noticed it immediately.

Is there a setting in the NIC for the server that could need to be reset? Could the NIC have been "partially" damaged? Unfortunately I know just enough about networking to be dangerous so any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

What I would do is while you still have connectivity is to install a USB-NIC adapter. Its easier to do it when you can see whats going on rather than doing it blind. You can run the server with or without the USB-NIC Adapter installed so to have it just ready before a NIC Failure is a good idea and the cost is very reasonable.

Here is a link to a guide I wrote that will explain the process but its for a blind install but the process is the same only you will be able to do it via RDP and be able to see the prompts from the server.

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/06 ... ur-server/

Good Luck and let me know how you make out.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Thanks comp1962. I always need a good excuse to go to Fry's...

I'll let you know how it works out.

Good results but may have uncovered another issue.

I was able to install the USB connector (thanks for the instructions) with minimal fuss. Had to find the setup.exe down in the folder.

The connection light on the DGN200 router is now showing green, hi-speed connection. Good there.

The network LED is still off on the MSS. Could this be because the LED is reporting the connection thru the internal NIC which is now unused?

Nightly backups (except one PC) are now back to the normal times prior to the connection problem. Connection thru Windows explorer is fast from all machines. Console connection is fast from all but one machine.

The one PC that is an issue is a Vista 64bit desktop that I recently upgraded to Win7. After installing the USB connector the nightly backups on that computer started running between 4 and 7 hours. Prior to problems the backup was running between 12 and 20 minutes. At first I thought it might be caused by the large amount of files that were changed during the Win7 upgrade. After 3 days I reinstalled the Connector software, ran a manual backup and it took 10 minutes. That night however the nightly backup again took 6 hours. It looks like the backup is waiting/hanging for 4-6 hours at 0% and when it actually starts it finishes in about 20 minutes. The Console connection on this computer is also slow and sometimes will not connect at all.

Could there be something about Win7 that I am not aware of that needs to be changed?

The LED should be off if no connection is made to the NIC on the EX470. The new USB-LAB Adapter is now doing all the heavy lifting. I just want to mention one thing about using the USB-LAN Adapter and that has to do with performing a server recovery and the need to setup a bootable USB Flash Drive with the SMI Files installed on it and the need to put the drivers on the flash drive and edit a hidden file so the recovery can take place if you use the USB-LAN Adapter. While I did write the Guide and have tested the proceedure, believe it or not no one I have provided the guide ever got back to me to let me know how their tests worked out. So its been a year now and the guide is collecting cob webs.

Anyway I do urge you to extract the SMI Files from your server. If you do not know how to do this let me know and I will be happy to explain how to expose them so that you can copy them to a safe location for future use if needed.

You are fortunate in that your LAN Port is still functional so if the day comes when you have to perform a server recovery it may work for you but at a slower speed. Of course the slow speed may just be the result of something else and the LAN Port could very well return to being fully functional after a recovery. If you have a spare drive 80 GB or larger you could test this out. I would not suggest using your working Server Drives at this point because you could get into trouble which is why I suggest a test drive only.

As for the client having difficulty its really strange you can perform a manual backup without issue but the automated backup is stalling. Not certain what could be causing this at this point accept to say its just wierd. I wonder if the same thing were to happen if you logon to the console using another client and force a backup to the client your having trouble with. The other thing you can try is one night just shut down all your other clients and leave that one client on and see if the backups work fine. I wonder if the order of backups and the time frame it takes might come into play with something else running on your server that might be interfearing with the backup process. Not really certain what could be doing it just curious or you could simply change the time your server performs backups and see what if any changes might occur.

I will work with you as much as I can to help you get through this issue.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

I think I have a harddrive I could use but I will have to look around. I will need some help to with the things you mentioned. I will be out of town for a few days so it will be next week before I can attempt any of this though.

I have been monitoring my systems for a couple of days now and the only machine I seem to be having trouble with is the recently converted Win7 pc. When I get back I'll post a more detailed account of what I am seeing. The first thing I may want to try is a "correct" uninstall/reinstall of the Connector software. The pc is 64 bit and was bought prior to WHS supporting 64bit so it looks like I have connector software installed under PROGRAM FILES(x86) and under PROGRAM FILES. I wonder if they could be conflicting with each other.

Thanks for all your help.

Terry

When your ready I will be here to help you in anyway I can.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

I haven't abandoned this thread, just trying to get meaningful testing results so it doesn't sound like I'm shooting in the dark. (Maybe it's too late for that already... )

I'm starting to think I might not have a WHS box problem at all. My "main" computer (the one I use 98% of the time) started having trouble connecting to the internet. It has a hardwired ethernet connection as well as a wireless connection. Since the computer is physcially 3 feet from my router I used an ethernet cable and had disabled the wireless connection. We have a couple of wireless netbooks in the house and they were having no connection issues so I disabled the ethernet card and enabled the wireless connection. Voila! Connection problems were gone and my speeds were as good or better than ever. Until this morning...

I work from home a couple of days a week with a company-supplied laptop using a VPN connection. This morning it would not connect. It was connected through a Netgear switch to the router. I changed the cable directly to the router and now it's working.

I checked the reviews on Newegg.com for the DGN2000 router and a lot of users are having the same or very similar problems to what I'm having. Wired ports failing 1-by-1 but wireless still working, intermittent connection dropouts, etc. So now I am wondering if my issue is totally related to a failing router. Do you have any recommendations for wireless DSL modem/router with 4 to 8 ports?

Over the past 3 years I have been using a Linksys WRT610N and its by far the best router I have ever used. I also have a DLink DIR655 another fine router thats very feature rich. I purchased the DLink router because I believed it might be easier for me to configure for a multiserver environment on one internet connection. Maybe because I was more familiar with the Linksys Router I had better luck in achieving what I wanted to do. None the less I thought the DLink Router was also a fine router which I am using off site and its serving me very well.

You can still find both these routers but the Linksys WRT610N will be abit more difficult to find but its my understanding the E3000 is what Linksys Replaced it with but this I am not really certain of.

I do not use DSL but I do believe these routers can be used with a DSL modem. There are some threads on the site where routers are discussed and maybe you might find a wider selection to chose from and fine one that may better suit your needs. I only mention these two routers because I have experience with them and I am very happy with my Linksys WRT610N. Prior to that router I use to end up swapping them out on a yearly basis because of drop outs but this very rarely occurs. My GF was able to get one earlier this year and she is very pleased with it.

In the past I have tried various Netgear routers and always brought them back within a day or two. While I tend to have a great deal of patience it is not the case with Routers and and I tend to be very picky with them and have no tolorance for routers which do not perform well. This is not to say Netgear makes horrible routers its just me saying that I have never had one here that I was pleased with.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8