Forum Home
Press F1
 
Thread ID: 75080 2006-12-15 23:12:00 LAN problem Tarras (11624) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
506964 2006-12-15 23:12:00 OS = Win98 SE
Network Adaptor = Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
Router = Dynalink RTA 1335

I have two computers – Main and Spare and my problem is with Spare.

These two computers were originally networked by a direct cable connection using a cross over cable between the two network cards. Main (XP Home SP2) was connected to ADSL by modem and Spare used Internet Connection Sharing via a proxy server on Main to access the internet.

Because of doubts about the security of the proxy server I decided to purchase and install a router. I installed new cables between the router and each of the two computers and discarded the crossover cable.

I had a little bit of trouble setting up Main to work with the router but eventually succeeded.

Initially Spare was able to see Main and vice versa but I could not get Spare to connect to the Internet. However after much fiddling about with the settings on Spare I managed to stuff up the interconnection between Spare and Main and now neither can see the other.

I suspected that the previous direct cable connection settings might be interferring so I removed all the components from the Network Properties window on Spare and reinstalled them according to the instructions that came with the router but with no success.

When I ping the router from Spare I get “destination host unreachable” and the DHCP Table on the router (accessed from Main) only shows the connection to Main.

I have tried changing ports on the router and checked that the cable is securely plugged in. Both the router and the NIC on Spare show a green light.

Can anyone suggest what I should do to fix this problem?

My wife uses Spare for her email and is not very happy with me!
Tarras (11624)
506965 2006-12-16 02:17:00 check on spare

1. firewall settings
2. if router is also dhcp server that spare is set to automatic for ip assignment ie ip is not manually set
3. spare and main are in the same workgroup
beama (111)
506966 2006-12-16 03:06:00 1 - no firewall installed yet

2 - router is dhcp server and spare is set to automatic for ip assignment

3 - both Main and Spare are Mshome though Spare persists in displaying it all upper case in Explorer - is it case sensitive?

Surely while having different work group names would prevent Spare and Main from seeing one another it should not affect Spare's ability to connect to the internet through the router?
Tarras (11624)
506967 2006-12-16 20:38:00 have you tried running the network wizard on spare (sometimes this works)
silly question I know
does the network card have connection and activity lights showing
also post the results of this command Ie ip. To be run from a command prompt

for 9x

winipcfg

Nt kernel ie w2k/ xp

ipconfig /all

run on both machines the thing to look for is the ips are in the same range
and using the same subnet mask, 255.255.255.0 as an example
beama (111)
506968 2006-12-17 07:27:00 Hi Beama

Thanks for your further input.

Today I took the NIC out of it's PCI slot and put it in another one and installed the driver again. I also checked the cable for continuity. I swapped ports on the router but it made no difference to Spare. Device Manager says that the NIC is working properly and there are no conflicts

Then I formatted the hard drive on Spare and re-installed Win98 SE so now I have a completely clean installation but not updated with the latest patches as I have no connection to the internet.

I installed the driver for the NIC and Win 98 kindly set up the network connection automatically but the system froze when I tried to access the network so I went into Safe Mode and removed TCP/IP and Client for MS Networks just leaving the network adaptor. I then rebooted and used the Network Connection Wizard that is on the XP CD to set up Spare but no luck.

Exploring the Network Neighbourhood now doesn't even show Spare as being on the network - when I click to expand the Entire Network I get the error message "Unable to browse the network" "The network is not accessible". This is worse than when I started this morning when I did not get this error message and Spare was shown as being on the network even though nothing else was

Here are the IP config settings

Main
Windows Ip Configuration

Host Name main
Primary Dns Suffix
Node Type Unknown
IP Routing Enabled No
WINS Proxy Enabled No
DNS Suffix Search List Mshome

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection

Connection –specific DNS Suffix Mshome
Description Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
Physical Address 00-40-F4-53-F2-2C
Dhcp Enabled Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled Yes
IP Address 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
DHCP Default Gateway 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers 192.168.1.1

Spare

Host Information

Host Name Spare
DNS Server –
Node Type Broadcast
Net BIOS Scope Id –
IP Routing Enabled –
WINS Proxy Enabled –
NetBIOS Resolution uses DNS –

Ethernet Adaptor Information

Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

Adapter Address 00-40-F4-53-F5-20
IP Autoconfiguration Address 169.254.120.190
Subnet Mask 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway –
DHCP Server 255.255.255.255
Primary WINS Server –
Secondary WINS Server –
Tarras (11624)
506969 2006-12-17 08:13:00 You have a different IP range for each computer - change 169.254.120.190 to 192.168.1.3 and see what happens (i.e. take off the autoconfiguration setting and set it manually). johnd (85)
506970 2006-12-17 08:52:00 I dont think your spare pc is talking to the router the reason for this
winipcfg settings dont match the other pc settings
ips of machines are in different range to each other
subnet masks are different
spare dosnt know about the router compare the two ips (dhcp server and gateway) which is the router ip

I would go back to basics with spare no need for a format this time

check cabling
check drivers
check tcp/ip settings pay attention dhcp settings
type this command in at a command prompt "ping localhost" do you get a reply
to set up a continual ping to your router while testing type this in
ping 192.168.1.1 -t (to stop it press CTRL + C)
beama (111)
506971 2006-12-17 09:02:00 The fact that Spare has received (from the OS) an autoconfigured address tends to indicate a physical network problem - faulty network card or faulty cable. johnd (85)
506972 2006-12-17 21:05:00 The fact that Spare has received (from the OS) an autoconfigured address tends to indicate a physical network problem - faulty network card or faulty cable.

+1

if you are getting an IP address in the 169.254.x.x range then it means that windows has given you an address because it can't talk to the DHCP server. Have you tried it witht he cable from your main machine. Or even the old crossover cable (the router will be able to work it out to use a xover cable).
trig42 (11325)
506973 2006-12-18 02:58:00 Thanks for all the helpful suggestions but no amount of fiddling with the settings makes any difference.

I was beginning to come to the conclusion that it was a hardware problem. I have now checked the cable on Main with a good result so that leaves the NIC as everything else seems to be working OK.

I am not game to try swapping cards with Main as I might end up with two computers that can't access the LAN or Internet so I have ordered a new NIC and I will let you know the result when it arrives in two or three days.
Tarras (11624)
1 2