Print Server with Windows network

[uclaengr]

I have a small network with six PC's and two printers connected to an ARK print print server. All of the PC's can connect to each other and all of them can print to the printers, except one PC which for some reason cannot connect to the print server. It does connect to all of the other PC's and to the Internet. Wierdly, if I disconnect three of the other PC's from the hub (to which they are connected by Coax) then the one problem PC can print just fine, which would seem to prove that it is not a software setup problem. Four of the PC's, including the problem one, are connected via Coax to a hub. Two of the PC's and the print server are connected via Cat5 cables to the hub. The print server shows up in Network Neighborhood on the problem PC, but if I doubleclick the print server, it says it is unavailable. Anybody have any suggestions of things to try to solve this problem? I talked to the manufacturer of the hub and server (same company) and they were stumped. They said they would set up an exact duplicate of my network and try to simulate the problem, which impressed me greatly, but so far they have not come up with a solution.

I am running Windows98 networking. I have TCP/IP installed for ICS, IPX/SPX for some software and for the

[patweb]

Is it a COAX hub? Or are the the machines on COAX using the same segment. Is the hub a repeater or switch?

You may just have a flaky terminator on the link that the problem PC is on. That would explain why the problem goes away when you disconnect the other PC's on the link. Also, if you run any network packet analyzers, that would tell you if you have a flaky network card on one of the PC's (a flaky card produces packets of varied size that would take down a coax link.).

[uclaengr]

Thanks for the reply.

The hub is a combination BNC & RJ45 hub, 10Mbps. It is an active (powered) hub, but not a repeater. It has one BNC connector and 8 RJ45 receptacles. The flaky PC is by itself on the segment that goes in one direction from the BNC Tee on the hub, and the other 3 coax connected PC's are in the other direction from the tee on the hub. So the hub is one segment from the end of the line, with the flaky PC at the end. I will try replacing the terminator and see if that makes a difference. I am not familiar with packet analyzers. Where can I get one?

[uclaengr]

I tried replacing the terminator at the problem PC, and also tried replacing the cable segment itself. Neither made any difference. The odd thing is that the problem PC can connect to all other PC's on the network and to the Internet through one of them which is acting as a DSL server. The only thing it cannot connect to is the print server. The only thing I can think of is that I am using NetBEUI to connect to the print server and TCP/IP for everything else, so it seems to be some combination of NetBEUI and the wiring.