HELP HELP Lost Internet connectivity on Port 1 on all Macs at Computer lab

I am in charge of maintaining a Mac lab with 40 Intel Mac Pro workstations based on Mac OS X Tiger, hosted by Windows DHCP server for Internet access. They were all connected to Ethernet port 1 when I lost Internet connectivity on all 40 Mac workstations last week, but when I switched all the ethernet cables to Ethernet port 2 I got Internet connectivity back! All my Macs were enabled with Faronics Deep Freeze for at least one month prior to the incident on port 1 . To eliminate any doubt or possiblity that problem could have been caused internaly within the Macs, I connected a few of Macs from Port 1 to a differnet gateway segment and to my surprise I got the Internet back on Port 1. Our Network engineers don't have any experience working with Macs and they try to blame it on me :boxingand vice versa:banghead. The only major change I have done to these Macs was a month ago when I changed the computer names to comply with our IT naming policy. When I browse system.log (Port 1) I still see some references on old computer name with current date. The system.log on port 2 has references on new computer names. Do these references come from DHCP server? Is it possible that there might be a table log on Windows DHCP server that it is still indexing my old Macs computer names based on MAC addresses of Ethernet port 1. I am just looking for a techincal literature so I can tell our network engineers what to do. I am also afraid to lose the Internet access on Ethernet port 2. Please help!

 

Well it is not technical data sheet but.. this may be of useful to you
http://blogs.technet.com/teamdhcp/a...server-events-for-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

 

Thank you for the reply, I have placed a work order for our Network engineer to lookup for MACfilter logs entries and hopefully they might have a solution. I will notify you the results.
Just to be on the safe site, I broguht two newly Macs opened from the box to the Mac lab and again to my surprise they didn't work on Ethernet port 1. Please post new suggestions for more testing.

 

Problem with Ethernet Port 1 on Mac Pro OS X

Please disregard the actual posting below (very confusing), Here is the new version of my posting:
I am in charge of maintaining a Mac lab with 40 Intel Mac Pro workstations based on Mac OS X Tiger, hosted by Windows DHCP server for Internet access. They were all connected to Ethernet port 1 when I lost Internet connectivity on all 40 Mac stations last week, but when I switched all the ethernet cables to Ethernet port 2 I got Internet connectivity back! To eliminate any doubt or possiblity that problem could have been caused internaly within the Macs, I connected a few of Macs from Port 1 to a differnet switch with a different gateway ip address 198.168.yy.254 and to my surprise I got the Internet back on Port 1.
Our Network engineers don't have any experience working with Macs and they try to blame it on me and vice versa. Is it possible that there might be a table log on Windows DHCP server that locks the MAC addresses of Ethernet port 1 and prevent the port accessing the Internet. I am just looking for a techincal literature so I can tell our network engineers what to do. I am also afraid to lose the Internet access on Ethernet port 2. In other word, the Ethernet port 1 work on any segment 198.168.yy.254 within the organization excepton its local segment 198.168.10.254 . Please help!

 

Re: Problem with Ethernet Port 1 on Mac Pro OS X

sorry, some of this isnt making sense.

"They were all connected to Ethernet port 1" - what do you mean? are all the computers in the lab connected to a switch, which then connects to your core switch on port 1?

"but when I switched all the ethernet cables to Ethernet port 2 I got Internet connectivity back!" - there is only one port 2 on a switch. what do you mean by that? did you did you unplug the switch that feeds the lab from port 1 on your core, and plug the cable into port 2 on your core?

"I connected a few of Macs from Port 1 to a different switch" - ok, so did you rule out that its just a bad port on your switch??

 

Re: Problem with Ethernet Port 1 on Mac Pro OS X

When I say "Ethernet port 1 and 2" I am refering to those ports or jacks at the back of apple computers where you connect your network or ethernet cables. As you should know all G5 or Mac pro have two jacks at back of the machine. I thought they refer to them as Ethernet port #1 and #2. Please correct me if I am using the wrong terms. So what I mean when I plug the cable to first jack the internet does not work, but it works on second jack of the Apple machine. Thank You!

 

Re: Problem with Ethernet Port 1 on Mac Pro OS X

I apologize if I have created some confusion here.
When I say Ethernet port 1 or 2 I am refering to those Ethernet jacks or ports at back of Apple machine where you connect the network or Ethernet cables. All Mac pro have two ethernet jack or port at back of the machine. All these machine are connected to one switch through these cables and the switch is connected to a router..... DHCP server. This is a big organizations and there are 10's of switches and routers.

 

oooh. sorry about that, im not familiar with macs. im used to the terminology, but more so when used when referring to network devices. i cant be of much help here, my apologies. hope you get it figured out though. you could try your question in the mac forum as well. you might get some better help there.

 

You were right about confusion and I would like to thank you to bring it up.
I have placed third version of my posting at Macintosh forum which should clear all the confusion hopefully:
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=185882