Plant Network Lan

Hi all

Advice for a networking novice!

We have a plant network 10 years old now wired via network mixed with some managed hubs and mainly unmanaged hubs.

It consists of over 100 plc devices including a couple of desktop workstations.

Recently we have been having a few issues.

These are we are now unable to access the network wireless using an access point we have (this has worked for some time), the network keeps dropping losing the address and becoming unresponsive to ping, yet via ethernet it works fine.

We also have it where a 4 machines that are identical run on managed stratix hubs, these have to be left off the network suddenly as they all bomb out and lose their ethernet connections to their respective flex i/os.

The network from machine to machine was built basically from what i understand just connection one ethernet hub to another nothing else.

So is there some good knowledge bases for networking you guys know of? As i have a nasty feeling this network is just full of collisions now bombing it all out unfortunately.

Might start by trying to draw out your network.

Is this all process equipment or do you have business on this network as well?

Everything is static IP (some people like having a DHCP server as well)?

Does the 4x stratix all lose connection when something is plugged in or unplugged from the network? (This might be a spanning tree issue.)

edit - Also, wireless isn't causing any kind of looped traffic within the network?