Articles & Tutorials

Our troubleshooting section offers information on how to deal with some common networking problems, tweaks, and advice on important networking tools.

Articles & Tutorials / Network Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting common Remote Access Service Problems: Date - Jul 02, 2009; Author - Brien M. Posey; Simple solutions to seemingly complex problems with Remote Access Services.
10 Ways to Troubleshoot DNS Resolution Issues: Date - Jun 17, 2009; Author - David Davis; 10 different ways to troubleshoot DNS resolutions issues.
Troubleshooting Connectivity Problems on Windows Networks (Part 6): Date - Oct 07, 2008; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article concludes the series on troubleshooting connectivity problems by showing you what to look for in the Windows routing tables.
Troubleshooting Connectivity Problems on Windows Networks (Part 5): Date - Sep 25, 2008; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article continues the series on troubleshooting connectivity problems by examining the output produced by the TRACERT command.
Troubleshooting Connectivity Problems on Windows Networks (Part 4): Date - Sep 18, 2008; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article continues the series on troubleshooting connectivity problems on Windows based networks by taking a look at the problem of packet loss, and by showing you how to trace the route that a packet takes across the network.
Troubleshooting Connectivity Problems on Windows Networks (Part 3): Date - Sep 11, 2008; Author - Brien M. Posey; In this article, I will continue my discussion by showing you how to verify that the local TCP/IP protocol stack is working correctly.
Troubleshooting Connectivity Problems on Windows Networks (Part 2): Date - Aug 21, 2008; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article continues the Troubleshooting Connectivity Problems series by showing you how to examine the machine’s IP configuration for clues to the cause of the problem.
Troubleshooting Connectivity Problems on Windows Networks (Part 1): Date - Aug 14, 2008; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article series will explain various troubleshooting techniques that you can use when machines on a Windows network have difficulty communicating with each other.
Troubleshooting Logon Problems: Date - Jul 31, 2008; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article discusses some of the more common causes of logon failures in Active Directory environments.
Troubleshooting Remote Desktop: Date - Nov 06, 2007; Author - Brien M. Posey; Some reasons why it is sometimes difficult to establish a Remote Desktop session with a remote computer, and some workarounds to these various issues.
Working With Network Monitor (Part 5): Date - Oct 03, 2007; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article concludes the Working with Network Monitor series by showing you how to extract readable data from a captured packet.
Working With Network Monitor (Part 4): Date - Sep 25, 2007; Author - Brien M. Posey; This article continues the Network Monitor series by examining various filtering techniques.
Working with Network Monitor (Part 3): Date - Aug 16, 2007; Author - Brien M. Posey; How to begin isolating the captured data that you are interested in.
Working with Network Monitor (Part 2): Date - Jul 31, 2007; Author - Brien M. Posey; How to use Network Monitor.
Working With Network Monitor (Part 1): Date - Jul 03, 2007; Author - Brien M. Posey; How Network Monitor can be used to troubleshoot various types of network problems.
Troubleshooting a DHCP Server: Date - Dec 27, 2006; Author - Brien M. Posey; A look at the various reasons why a DHCP server might fail to lease IP addresses and the solutions to those problems.
TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 4: Using Netdiag.exe: Date - Dec 13, 2006; Author - Mitch Tulloch; How to use the Netdiag.exe support tool to diagnose TCP/IP connectivity issues.
TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 3: Repairing Network Connections: Date - Nov 14, 2006; Author - Mitch Tulloch; How to use the Repair feature for network connections on Windows platforms.
TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 2: Troubleshooting Routing Tables: Date - Oct 17, 2006; Author - Mitch Tulloch; This article explains how routing tables work and how to troubleshoot routing problems in Windows-based networks.
TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 1: An Introduction: Date - Sep 20, 2006; Author - Mitch Tulloch; This article describes a structured approach for troubleshooting problems with TCP/IP networks.
Working With the Visio 2003 Connector For the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) 2.0: Date - Jun 20, 2006; Author - Brien M. Posey; In this article, I will show you how to use Visio 2003 to create an accurate diagram of your network. I will then show you how you can link MBSA 2.0 into that diagram.
Active Directory Troubleshooting Part 1: Date - Dec 22, 2005; Author - Robert J. Shimonski; In this three part series we will cover ways to monitor and troubleshoot common problems with Active Directory. Although listing ways to troubleshoot Active Directory could easily span into a 3 volume book set, we will cover the most common issues and solutions here within these articles. Whether you are already a pro, or just a beginner – these tips should serve you well. In Part 1 of this article series we will cover replication traffic and how to monitor and troubleshoot it with tips and tools.
Making Sense of Windows Routing Tables: Date - Dec 08, 2005; Author - Brien M. Posey; It’s amazing the way that time can go by. People tend to think of computers as being high tech, but the TCP/IP protocol has been around in one form or another for over three decades. As such, TCP/IP has had time to really mature and be made stable and reliable. When it comes to computers, nothing is foolproof though. When routing packets across a network, things do occasionally go wrong. In these situations, it is helpful to be familiar with the Windows routing tables. Routing tables dictate the flow of packets from the machine in question. In this article, I will show you how to view the Windows routing tables and how to make sense of the data that is contained within it.
Using Tracert: Date - Sep 29, 2005; Author - Robert J. Shimonski; Tracert (also known as traceroute) is a Windows based tool that allows you to help test your network infrastructure. In this article we will look at how to use tracert while trying to troubleshoot real world problems. This will help to reinforce the tool's usefulness and show you ways in which to use it when working on your own networks.
Using NSLOOKUP for DNS Server diagnosis: Date - Sep 27, 2005; Author - Brien M. Posey; The DNS protocol has been around for decades and is a stable and reliable protocol. Even so, DNS does occasionally have problems. PING is a great tool for DNS server diagnosis, and I tend to use it quite frequently myself. However, sometimes PING just doesn’t give you enough information about the problem at hand. When you need more information about a DNS problem than what PING provides you with, you can always turn to the NSLOOKUP command. In this article, I will show you how to use NSLOOKUP.
Using Pathping: Date - Aug 23, 2005; Author - Robert J. Shimonski; One of my favorite Windows tools is pathping. Pathping is a Windows based command-line tool used to provide information about the path data takes to its intended destination, network latency and network loss at intermediate hops between a source and destination. We will cover what latency is as well as what hops are and so on within this article. We will also look at how to use pathping while trying to troubleshoot real world problems. This will help to reinforce the tool's usefulness and show you ways in which to use it when working on your own production networks.
Troubleshooting Basic TCP/IP Problems: Date - Jul 05, 2005; Author - Brien M. Posey; Over the last several years, TCP/IP has gone from being the protocol that only geeks use, to a universal protocol that everyone uses, thanks to the widespread use of the Internet. TCP/IP has been around for decades and is a solid, reliable, mature protocol. Most of the time when there is a TCP/IP related problem, the problem is related to the way that one or more of the hosts on the network are configured. In this article, I will walk you through the process of troubleshooting some common TCP/IP issues.
Monitoring and Troubleshooting Using Event Logs: Date - Sep 14, 2004; Author - Mitch Tulloch; This article reviews best practices for working with Windows event logs including how to interpret event messages, how to configure event logs, how to search and filter events, how to view events on remote systems, and how to use EventCombMT.exe and other tools to monitor events on multiple systems.
Testing Connection using "NET DIAG": Date - Sep 16, 2001; Author - Johannes Helmig
Testing Connection using TCP/IP: Date - Sep 16, 2001; Author - Johannes Helmig
Windows Version: Date - May 24, 2001; Author - Johannes Helmig
FastEthernet and Hubs : Auto Select: Date - Apr 13, 2001; Author - Johannes Helmig
Ping works only in ONE direction: Date - Apr 08, 2001; Author - Johannes Helmig
Getting Auto-Disconnected from NT4: Date - Feb 22, 2000; Author - Johannes Helmig
Using Telnet to delete POP3 e-mail: Date - Feb 20, 2000; Author - Johannes Helmig
Dialup-Networking does NOT save the Password: Date - Aug 17, 1999; Author - Johannes Helmig
Device Manager Codes: Date - Feb 12, 1999; Author - Johannes Helmig
What is my IP/Ethernet Address ?: Date - Feb 12, 1999; Author - Johannes Helmig
Event Viewer: Date - Jul 28, 1998; Author - Johannes Helmig
Is the Network-Connection "healthy" ?: Date - Dec 07, 1997; Author - Johannes Helmig
Checking: PC not shown in Network Neigborhood: Date - Nov 03, 1997; Author - Johannes Helmig
The Network is slow !: Date - Oct 31, 1997; Author - Johannes Helmig
Networks require a Common Ground: Date - Oct 11, 1997; Author - Johannes Helmig