I'm working with an Intel NUC (mini-PC) with Ubuntu 14.04 installed on it, and am trying to SSH to it from a machine with Ubuntu 14.04. Getting video output from it isn't a super accessible option at the moment, because I don't have the correct display adapters. I took it to a lab initially that had the appropriate connectors and did some configuration wherein I set its eth0 address to 192.168.17.69, and set it to have that address on startup (I had to modify /etc/networking/interfaces if I remember correctly).
The problem I am now having is that I am only sometimes able to communicate with it. Its IP address is 192.168.17.69, mine is 192.168.17.12. When I ping it, it sometimes doesn't respond. When it doesn't, I can sometimes fix it by restarting it, or by unplugging the ethernet cable and plugging it back in, or having someone else connect to it and try to ping, then when it works for them (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't), I give it another try, and it magically works. But otherwise, even an nmap -sP 192.168.0.0/16 yields no results.
Does anyone have any hints on where to look for the source of this problem? The painful thing here is that if I can't communicate with it, my progress is impeded until it magically decides to work again, since I can't get video output from it. (Notably, it doesn't just magically work by waiting for some time. I have to do something to it, like connecting it to another computer, etc. in order for it to work).
