Hey Bob. Thanks for replying.
I'll address your thoughts and questions one at a time:
1. The ip is variable. The configuration tracing back from the computer is as follows:
Computer --> Switch --> Server
There is a router as well. Internet Modem (T1) --> Router --> Switch --> Computers and Server
If I am not mistaken, I believe that the router (an older linksys model), is assigning the IP addresses as the DHCP.
I am simply going to paste some screenshots I have taken of the router configuration. I may blur out something that would be a security issue.
2. On assigning a static IP: Not sure exactly how to do this properly.
At first, I simply tried to go to the individual computer's TCP/IP settings in the network connection properties on this screen:
I simply used ipconfig at the dos prompt to get the IP and subnet mask, etc. and typed them into "Use the following IP address".
This did not seem to work. Lost my internet connection on that computer and the server.
Would I need to configure the static IP differently?
3. When I "lose my connection", yes, I can ping the server and everything appears normal. Packets are sent and received in less than 1 ms.
4. I cannot, however, successfully ping another computer on the network. I should probably clarify that the issue probably doesn't have anything to do with a faulty wire or anything of that nature. The wiring seems to be fine, and since I'm getting these errors on multiple computers, I would not expect a wiring issue. Saying I "lost my connection" is probably misleading. I cannot access files from the server when the issue occurs, but I usually have internet access without issue.
5. I have really scoured the events viewer for both the server and the client, and I can't find anything to coincide with the drops and issues I've been having. I had mentioned that these problems happen usually at 5:30 pm. I don't see anything happening specifically in that time range. By the way, a month ago, I had turned off some scheduled events on the server occurring every 4 hours - and turning that off had no effect. Is there any way I can share an event log with you or copy it? Or is that a waste of time?
NEW INFO:
I was going to mention that in our medical office, we did an upgrade to a digital x-ray system that came with 2 computers. One reads the images and one is for viewing them. This setup is as follows:
COMPUTER 1 --> NEW ROUTER (completely separate from the other router I mentioned) -->COMPUTER 2
The new router gets a connection to the network through a wire that connects it to the switch for the server. The new router coordinates a number of components in the digital x-ray equipment.
I can't remember if the problems started before or after the digital x-ray installation. I thought maybe the two routers may be doing battle in assigning IPs - but I would have expected more problems than these intermittent drops only on computers connected to the domain.
Thanks, Jeremy