Tip for Troubleshooting Intermittent Network Transfer Failures or System Losing Network Connection Messages

Tip for troubleshooting intermittent network transfer failures or system losing network connection messages .

With the increased demand of all medical devices needing to interface within a large cohesive network, it more and more likely that multiple piece of equipment or computers may be assigned or acquire the same IP address. Many piece of medical equipment are used intermittently or only connected to the network periodically, whereas ultrasound unit tend to be commonly attached to the network all day. Since ultrasound unit sends large amounts of data across the network there software is written to keep a consistent monitor on network connection status and if they sense a duplicate IP address to their own, they often drop their network connection altogether. Ultrasound system typically give one of three symptoms when a duplicate IP address is detected:

• The system will inform you that it has detected a duplicate IP address
• The system will inform you that it is no longer connected to the network or
• The system will fail when attempting to send images to the network or pull information from the work-list.

If your piece of equipment intermittently experiences one of these symptoms, you may want to check for an IP address conflict. One easy way to check for a duplicate IP conflict is the next time your ultrasound unit loses its network connection, shut it off or unplug the network cable from the wall. Go to a networked PC workstation that is close to the ultrasound unit and bring up a command prompt. Attempt to ping the ultrasound unit’s IP address. If the ultrasound’s IP address is active on another device you receive a return ping message on the computer. If you are unable to get a response from the ping, it likely that there is not another device with the same IP address.