network madness

well here's the situation ....

the setup - cisco 800 series router , 2 cisco 1900 switches , which connect abt 15 pc's .

the task - establish a connection with a remote server through a digital line (64kbps)

the problem - 7 pcs connected to one of the two switches do not connect to the citrix server hosted remotely ... but the ip ping works fine ... note that all 15 pc's connect to a local rs/6000 machine ...

the other 7 pc's connect remotely ... I've done a test with my pc connecting it to that suspected switch - result ... not able to establish connection ...

I've moved the suspected switch and replaced it with the working one ... to check if the switch is the problem ... result - it worked just fine

Im suspecting the cabling ... before that I need a second opinion ... who know I just may be barking up the wrong tree !!

Just to clarify that you have swapped the suspect switch with the good switch and the 7 pc's in question connect successfully with the remote Citrix server ?

If 'yes' then this does not sound like a cabling problem unless you exchanged connecting cables and switch ?

Also just to confirm that all ports on the suspect switch do not allow access to the citrix server ?

Can you confirm the protocol being used to connect to the Citrix server ? TCP/IP ?

Are all PC's using statically assigned IP addresses or DHCP and are they all configured on the same VLAN and subnet mask etc ??

yes they worked just fine
yes it uses tcp/ip
yes all ports on the suspected switch do not allow to connect
and the pc's have static ip's with a common subnet mask

Does each switch have a seperate connecting cable to the router, i.e. does the router have 2 LAN ports ?
When you changed the cisco switches around to test, did you also switch the LAN connection and cable to the router ?

Also have you checked the config of the switch ports on the suspect switch to confirm VLAN settings etc are identical to the working switch ?

the router has a single lan port which is connected to the working switch and from that switch we have cascaded a connection to the next switch ...

when i did the switch exchange i used the working lan

Try connecting the suspect switch directly to the router.

Also have you checked the switch port configs...make sure you confirm the port on the good switch and the interconnecting port on the suspect.

how do I check switch port config's ?

thanks

You should be able to connect via a serial port on a pc using the console cable supplied by Cisco, to the console port on the switch:
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/28201900/1928v9x/1900qs.htm

the ports are fine ... thanks for the link ... is it becoz of the distance .. there may be packet dropping ? its abt 125 meters ...

Just to confirm that ping works from the remote workstations to the host ?
With regard to network stability check on the workstations using netstat, i.e. on unix '#netstat -i' or on NT ':\netstat -e' and look for errors or collisions... Also try a constatnt ping from the workstations to the host and check the reply times....they should be pretty consistent.
I am still convinced the issue lies in the config of the suspect switch....can you physically switch the switch units around and test all workstations....and/or can you factory reset the suspect unit and reconf...