Resolved Intermittent connectivity issues with Windows 7

I’m having intermittent connectivity issues from my new laptop to my NAS. Before I get into the details, here is summary of the components involved. I have a TS-459 Pro II that hosts all of my documents, multimedia and email pst file. My new laptop is a Dell M18x with Windows 7 64 Bit with Office 2010. My old laptop is an HP ZD8000 with Windows XP and Office 2003.

I’ve been accessing my email, streaming music via iTunes and viewing/updating documents from NAS to my old laptop for about a year with no problems. However, I am now experiencing serious intermittent connectivity issues attempting to do the same things with my new laptop.

I first noticed the issues with MS Outlook. I can usually open Outlook fine, but after a short period of time, it will stop responding. This typically happens when I click anywhere on the screen, whether its trying to open or delete an email. Outlook will basically hang and finally report the path to the outlook.pst file on the NAS is not valid. At this point I can ping the NAS ip address so I know the network is up. If I restart Outlook, it takes a long time attempting to start and then it usually reports that the network path to the pst file is invalid.

I have noticed the same results with MS Excel when saving spreadsheets that are located on the NAS. I can work within the spreadsheet with no problems, but when I try and save it will report that the file is in use by another application "“ just another way for MS to tell me that it lost the connection and the file handle wasn’t cleared so it can’t open it.

I am also having problems streaming music that is stored on the NAS. I am running iTunes 10.5 and I know about the issues that everyone is reporting. I haven’t attempted to fix this yet, but I can still play songs from the NAS via the "Add file to library" option in iTunes. When I do this, at some point the song will be interrupted, it will pause for several seconds and then resume. Oddly enough, I have only experienced this while either Outlook or Excel is open. When it happened one time, I flipped over to Outlook and sure enough, it hung when I tried to open and email. Outlook had only been running for about 5-10 minutes and I had been playing music via iTunes for about 30-45 minutes with no problems.

Music streaming was also interrupted when I selected the "Network" icon on the left pane in Explorer. When you do this, Windows scans the network attempting to detect what systems are available to be accessed and will then display them. During this scan process, which took a long time, my song was interrupted and didn’t resume. Windows did not find the NAS on the network this time, when it usually does. I had to type in its UNC path to access it. Outlook and Excel were not running when this occurred. The same music interruption just happened without Explorer running.

I should mention that this happens regardless of my connectivity method to the network "“wired or wireless. I originally thought this issue was a result of upgrading to my new Sonicwall TZ-210W router, but I swapped my old Linksys WRT-54GX back in last night and I’m having the same problems.

It really seems like a network config issue with Windows 7, but I wanted to post here and see if anyone else has had or is having a similar issue.

Oh, I also have Norton Internet Security 2012 and the probelm occurs whether it is enabled or disabled.

Can someone please help me with this? I’m about let a vein open!

 

Thanks for the reply and suggestions. However, this still doesn't make sense.

1. I've always used DHCP for connecting to it with my old laptop and never has a problem. Why would this make a difference? Remember, I can always ping the NAS when experiencing connectivity/hang issues

2. I have read several articles confirming your point about the pst files. However, I never had a problem with the old laptop and this isn't the only connectivity issue that I'm experiencing. I'm also having problems with spreadsheets, streaming music and even viewing the NAS via Explorer. Some times Explorer can find the NAS and sometimes it cannot. Sometimes I can browse folder contents and sometimes I cannot.

3. I unchecked IP6 some time ago and it has not made a difference. Is it enough to just uncheck QoS or must I uninstall it?

4. I'll give this a try as well. Why would this make a difference?

Thanks again for the suggestions!

 

I think I found the issue that was causing me a major headache. I found that my NAS and DirecTv receiver were sharing the same IP address. I stumbled across this when I tried to download a movie on the DTV receiver. It started the download and puke after about 2%. I tested the internet connection through the DTV on screen option and it said the internet was not available. That's when I checked its network settings and found that it was set to the same IP address as the NAS. I haven't been able to recreate the issue since changing the IP address on the DTV.

Outlook will loose it connection if the laptop goes to Stand By mode, but I would expect that. So, I think I'm set.

BTW, I'm aware that Outlook is not supposed to be used in the manner that I'm using it, but two things here:

1. I've been using it in this "unsupported" manner for some time on my old Windows XP laptop with no issues. Not one. The issue only appeared after installing my new Windows 7 laptop. However, I did not factor in that I installed a new router at the same time. This is where I think the IP addresses got mixed. I did swap my older router back in, but I had the same problem.

2. I had the same issue with Excel when opening spreadsheets on the NAS.


FYI