So I stumbled across this problem today. I help run a network at a local school. It seems that 1 room all of a sudden doesn't have a connection. All the other computers in the school are fine. We checked cables and they're all good. Plugs are all in. We get orange lights in the office when they should be green. Any thoughts?????

Connections to what? Internet or local network?

Is it safe to presume that the PC's in this room connect to a hub which is then connected (uplinked) to a router or switch? If yes, you might have a single point of failure at the port on the router/switch. Get the IP address of a PC in the "Orange" room and run a tracert with that address from a PC with a working network connection.

Orange lights on which device in the office?

you might want to change the rj45 connector on both ends incase there's bad contact

Well... it is in a school. There are 3 offices that don't have a working connection. The reat of the pcs are fine. We tried to follow the cables but from the pc side they plug into a jack in the wall. Server-side there are about 50 cables plugged into the server all w/o tags. I followed lines but can't find a hub. I would presume ther eis one since each computer can access different servers (admin server, teachers server...). "Get the IP address of a PC in the "Orange" room and run a tracert with that address from a PC with a working network connection." How woudl I go about doing that? and what would that show me? Thanks again....

Tara

Tara, Call your school service. It is beyond this forum to second guess how your building is wired.
Besides, I can't grasp the difference between suddenly and gradually when there is an absense of service...And, does it make a diff?
Sorry, folks, I just can't help it.

the pc that doesn't have a connection- look on the back of the pc and see if the green light is on- where it's plugged into the adapter. If the light is on, then try to find a cable tester and test the connection

To get the IP address of a disabled PC run either ipconfig or winipcfg at the command prompt (in a DOS window). Take that ip address to a working PC, open a DOS window and type tracert "ip address" and hit enter. This should indicate which device in the system is defective by eventually timing out. If you were to ping the disabled PC from the connected PC it would time out immediately.

"Server-side there are about 50 cables plugged into the server all w/o tags."

You were probably looking at a switch or a hub, probably stacked units. Were all lights on this device "green"? How many floors in the building? Are there PC's on each floor? How many PC's on the network? How many lost their network connection?

john gives good advice by suggesting you call the people who manage and possibly designed the infrastructure. They should know where the devices are situated.

BryGuy - I was not looking at a switch/hub, I was looking at the server.There are 2 floors in th building plus a basement and a few off-shoot biuldings (expansion). There are PCs in every room of the building. ther are about 50 PCs on the network. There were 4 that lost connection - 2 in the same office, one across the hall, and one behind the one across the hall. I thank you for for all your help.

BOCES set up the network but we really don't have have someone that knows where evrything is.... so I got hired and am a new guy at the school and trying to figure things out. I haven't learned where hubs may be yet. I was in crawl spaces and crawling around all day today trying to find where a hub may be.

I would assume since only a few pcs are out, that there would be a hub they are plugged into that has a loose connection or something of the like.

The orange lights are on the NIC cards in the affected PCs. There are green and orange lights on the server. But that doesn't mean that they belong to these affected PCs since they started a network, didnt like it, and instead of using the old networking stuff, they used new stuff and kept the old in place. A bunch of geniuses - I know. I get stuck with their mess.

I will try the IP address solution first thing in the morning. Please advise of anymore ideas....

THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!

Since you have 50 cables ending in the
server room that are connected to 50 cables
located around the school we can almost
assume that each cable goes to a computer.
There are probably not any hidden hubs in the
ceiling.

Since you are now a part-time network
administrator, I think you should start
mapping your network.

Cable 1 - Room x - IP Address xxx.xxx.xxx.xx

Label each cable and port so the next person
won't have to redo this again.

I once had to trace about 90 lines through
2 floors back to the patch panels.

You can start this while your tracing your
bad connections.

What are the cause of the orange lights?
Collisions, No connection, etc.

When did the computers become disconnected?
Since all the problem computers are close
together I would start there. Pop a few
ceiling tiles and find where do the cables
go. I think you might find some damage
caused by some construction or repair. Your
cable(s) could be squeezed between framing
or conduits.

Since you also have orange lights on your
server end you might try disconnecting those.
Some may correspond to your disconnected
computers.

If you have a spare hub. You can test the
connection by using the hub in place of
a computer or another hub. Also check the
cables (especially the connectors).
Have a couple of known good cables to
substitute.

If you have a cable tester / tracer you
might use that. But I have question of
using it on a live system.

If your lucky you might find the problem in
an hour.

Remember to label so that you don't go back
testing the same ones over again. String
tags are good on cables. Label both ends.

Tara,

Sounds like a big task. If I was in your shoes, this is what I'd do.

On the server side start by disconnecting any cable displaying an orange light. These aren't active and will free up those ports. (You can always reconnect if need be). This is the easy part.

Next, as tech-fred suggested, pop a few ceiling tiles in the room where the affected PC's are to locate those cables. With any luck you'll find the wires and be able to make a prelinary determination of wire damage and how they were placed (you might find telephone wiring in close proximity as well). Depending obviously on the school's budget, it might be wise to suggest they call in a contractor with experience running LAN cabling. It might run a few bucks but you'll end up with a neat and documented cabling design for future reference. Detailed documentation is often overlooked but is a critical part of a well managed system.

Post back with your findings.

Another day at work. A solution is found! seems there are hubs as suspected. Just not in any convienient places. Turns out the hub blew.So now we need to wait for another hub to be sent so we can program it to route the logins. Thanks so much for all your help everyone. I'm sure another problem will arise that you guys can help me tackle. :)

I'm glad you found the problem. After I posted my suggestion I wondered if it wasn't overkill? Using an outside contractor probably won't be necessary but remember to document your steps going forward.