We have several offices in the UK however in one we have two PCs that have the same problem where they cannot see/ping etc to the primary DC but can see all other servers including the secondary DC. No problems accessing systems because they can see DC2 but because the network printers are on DC1 they are unable to print. All other 100 users/PCs on this site are OK. One is Win7 the other is XP.

Any ideas?

Martin

Flush DNS cache?

ipconfig /flushdns

We had already tried that.

traceroute? are you pinging the IP address or the computer name?

try

ipconfig /release

followed by

ipconfig /renew

do they have correct DNS server entries?

can DC2 resolve the name of DC1?

We had an issue like this in a lab session at uni the other week. I can't remember the exact cause, but it was something to do with ARP. Might be worth a look?

Guys

Have already tried all the obvious stuff you have mentioned, all other users and servers can see DC1 it is only these two PCs. It is not a DNS issue as it make no difference if I ping/tracert by IP or name it fails.

ARP - I will have to take a look at this

thanks

Martin

Are they on a domain and managed by AD?

Can you supply IP config information? Are they on the same network/vlan? Do you have the correct routing setup? Are those machines on static or dynamic ip address?

They are on a domain with active directory and dynamic IP. All routing seems correct and I even took the IP config from a working PC and used that as a static config and it still failed. If I plug a working PC on the same cable it works OK

Have you done a

ROUTE PRINT

and compared it to a machine that works

Remove the PC's from AD, release the IP from the PC. Remove them from the domain. On the server, delete the name from dhcp and dns. Add the pc's back onto the domain as a different name.

If you can't ping from the problem PC then it's not an AD problem.

Can you supply an ipconfig /all and a tracert to the two DCs from a good and bad PC.

I suspect an ARP issue, so try a new NIC in the PC.

arp -a

Check the MAC address for the IP that corresponds to the server

Looks like an ethernet issue. I'd try different ports on the switch for the problem PCs.

Looks like an ethernet issue. I'd try different ports on the switch for the problem PCs.

Post 11 ruled out the switch port.

What make, model and firmware is the switch?

Post 11 ruled out the switch port.

My bad. I didn't read the thread carefully enough. But still, it is unclear if the PC that worked fine had been switched off before testing on the new port. It could have taken advantage of its ARP cache...

Anyway, I think it is worth giving a try to Wireshark. arping utility might also come in handy.

Were the 2 PCs ever local to the PDC?

Try clearing the arp cache with

netsh interface ip delete arpcache

Are the machine running in "off line" mode? I had something similar on a XP machine when using Offline files.

Have turned it off and on again. :think:

Have turned it off and on again. :think:

If you can build easily from image files sometimes it can be worth rebuilding to get rid of odd faults.

Thanks Guys - clearing the arp cache did the job