General Network Troubleshooting for Macintosh Computers
The most common cause of network related problems is loose or damaged cabling. If you have a cable tester, check each cable to be sure there are no crossed or broken wires in each cable. If you do not have a cable tester, make sure no cables are crimped under heavy objects or bent sharply. Next, check the terminators on each cable. Make sure there are no bent pins. If you are using RJ-11 or RJ-45 cables, make sure the locking clips are not missing or broken on the terminators. Finally, make sure all the connection points between cables and devices are tight.
Once you have checked the cables and physical connections on the network, you should double check your network settings for each network protocol you use. Be sure you can access other computers on your network for file and printer sharing. If you can not share and access files and printers, chances are that there is a network configuration problem on one or more computers, or the driver software for a piece of network hardware is missing or out of date.
To find the source of a problem on a TCP/IP network you might also run a "traceroute" and a "ping" to and from each IP address on your network.
For the Mac OS 9 (a.k.a. Classic) operating system, you will first need to download and install a program to run traceroute and ping routines. Two popular programs which provide these routines are "WhatRoute" and "MacTCP Watcher." Please note that we do not make either of these programs. However, these programs are available on most internet download sites which carry Macintosh software.
The Mac OS X 10.1 operating system and more recent versions of Mac OS X, come with a program called Network Utility. This program can be used to run both a traceroute routine and a ping routine.
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