shaneoh1980 wrote: ... whenever we have connection issues and we make changes to our router configuration we find that no fixed connections work until we pull all ethernet cables out of the router and plug them back in. I'm wondering if this is something related.

I would say that this is definitely related. Unplugging the ethernet connection to (most) clients causes them to re-negotiate everything from physical line speed (10/100/1000, duplex etc) to ip addresses, router ip, dns. If you reboot the router then that will also happen but the timing will be different and the clients will all re-negotiate at once too. You basically get two situations that should be identical but are not if there is a fault.

For instance (example only, you may not have this at all), if there were another router device or dhcp server on your lan it may get to the clients before the 2860 and give them the wrong info. Is there anything other than standard clients (PC, MAC, phones, etc) on your lan?

@jedi98 - I don't think so. We do have a lot of equipment. Our ISP installed a modem which comes before the 2860 but they tell me this is configured in "pass-through" mode to allow us to do all the configuration after that. We also use a switch with around 30 ports to enable feeding the connection into a switchboard which then serves to sockets throughout the office. Other than that our network just consists of PCs, a few servers, a couple of IP phones, some peripherals like printers etc.

@Piste Basher - thanks very much for that.

The ISP modem would not be able to cause these symptoms - so I would not suspect that at all.

If the problem persists (with LAN2 turned off) then I would have a close look at the servers to see ip any software on there thinks that it is in charge of the local lan. For instance - some servers assume the role of internet gateway by default.

You've got me snooping around more and discovering that we have a managed switch in use. As far as I can tell this is being used to the factory default config but I'm having a look around it now and I'm going to try some things once I'm alone in the office and it doesn't matter so much if it breaks. Ultimately though I think you've probably gone some way towards solving this because thinking about this properly, this seems the most likely culprit. Failing that I'll investigate our servers to see if something is trying to serve IPs. Will update this thread when I have more information. Thanks so much for the help.

@Piste Bashe - thanks very much, that link you sent work perfectly for reflashing our old 2860. If only I'd found it before buying a new one!

Set-up the second 2860 as HA? Or set it up as duplicate of the first and see if symptoms still exist (ruling out/in physical issue with router).

Also is everything plugged into the switch and the switch plugged into the router? If so then try swapping the cable between the router and the switch. I have had a cable that worked fine but would bomb out spuriously based on no reason whatsoever. Soon as it was changed all problems went away.

Or plug your favourite employees directly into the router and see if they do/don't get the problem at the same time.

When the problem occurs can you still log in to the device and can it still ping/traceroute out?

Hope it helps.
Dave