It's the weirdest thing. I have all my PC's set to Max Power. Once powered up, they never go to sleep,
After about an hour, I am no longer able to access shared folders on other PC's in my house.
Here is a workaround. I can open a document through the network on the computer I am curently using. I can immediately close the document, and then I'm able to access folders on other pc's in my house. I have to first open a document through the network on the PC I am using in order to be able to access shared folders on other machines. This happens on every PC I have, every time. All of my PC's are running Windows 8.1 Pro.
More info:
I am always able to access shared files on all my pc's with my android phone running the Es Explorer App and on my iPad running the File Browser App. The inability to access shared network folders only affects Windows machines. It even affects my Windows tablet. After about an hour of idle time, I have to follow the procedure above to access shared folders even on my Dell Venue 8 Pro.
Any clue?