Can't even 'ping' between 2 machines

[Johnnyfartpants]

Up until a few days ago I had 2 machines networked on a peer-to-peer basis using 10/100 Base-T. I then disconnected it temporarily to try out a Belkin wireless LAN which a friend had not managed to install on his machines. The Belkin stuff worked fine so I uninstalled it and plugged my peer-to-peer network cable back in. Now I simply can't get the two machines to talk. The hardware seems fine (and in fact, both machines flag up an error if the cable is unplugged) but they just won't talk to each other. I've even uninstalled the network drivers and re-installed everything but no luck. If I try to 'ping' either machine from the other they just time out.

Am I right in thinking that if the hardware is functioning correctly and I set known IP addresses for each LAN connection, then Ping should just work - or is there more to it than that? I've set one machine to 10.1.0.1 and the other to 10.1.0.2 with a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0 (same for both systems). Any help would be really appreciated. I wish I'd never touched anything!!

 

[Johnnyfartpants]

Sorry, I haven't found a way to edit posts yet so I'll have to post again....

I should have added that both machines are running Windows XP Home Edition. After re-installing the hardware drivers I even ran the SOHO network setup wizard (which worked fine on both machines) but they still can't communicate.

 

[manarth]

It may be worthwhile removing any unneccessary protocols from "network neighbourhood" & removing the drivers for the wireless hardware (through "system properties" / "device manager" in the control panel - I'm assuming you are using windows!)

The dos command "ipconfig /all" shows the IP configuration for a machine.

Posting the results of IPconfig (from both machines) may help us shed some light on the problem.

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[bcastner]

Go back through Device Manager and Configure both cards to set standards for speed and duplex mode instead of Auto. 100 Full Duplex should work.

Also, it sounds as if you are using a cross-over cable between two machines. But whether cross-over, hub or switch make sure you did not inadvertantly keep one of your friends patch cables somewhere in the link while swapping equipment around.

 

[Johnnyfartpants]

Thanks for that Manarth,

I'm not sure what you mean by removing unwanted protocols but all the drivers for the wireless LAN were uninstalled before removing the actual hardware. I just did an ipconfig /all. For the first machine I the following get:-

Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : mycomputer
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-20-ED-50-1B-A4
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.0.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

and for the second machine, I get:-

Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Toshiba
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-39-8B-F6-E7
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.0.2
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

I hope that means something to you because it dosn't mean a lot to me! Thanks,

John

 

[Johnnyfartpants]

Thanks bcastner. I tried setting 100/full mode and interestingly, a message flashed up on the system tray icons saying something like &quot;Local area connection is now synchronised&quot; - which I've never seen before. But 'ping' still doesn't work!! The cable shouldn't be a problem though. I know it's definitely the right one.

John

 

[manarth]

your IP configuration looks fine...I assume you know your 2 IP addresses are 10.1.0.1 and 10.1.0.2

try &quot;ping 127.0.0.1&quot; (loopback test),
& &quot;ping 10.1.0.1&quot; from the &quot;10.1.0.1&quot; machine
& &quot;ping 10.1.0.2&quot; from the &quot;10.1.0.2&quot; machine

If you can ping the loopback, and each machine can ping it's own address, I'd definately agree with bcastner in that it would be a hardware configuration problem / bad cables.

If you can't do these pings, you may have a corrupt TCP/IP stack - simply uninstall then reinstall DUN to restore.

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[Johnnyfartpants]

Okay Manarth,

Tried the various ping tests and they all work as expected (i.e. all ok) but I just noticed a subtle difference when pinging each machine from the other one. If I ping machine 1 from machine 2, the small 'transmit' icon (on m/c 2's system tray) immediately lights up. The same doesn't happen if I ping machine 2 from machine 1. I also tried reversing the cable but it doesn't make any difference. I guess that machine 1 must have developed a fault of some sort - although both machines claim that the link is working at 100Mbits. Also, if I change the speed to 10Mbits, both machines report the changed speed. This suggests to me that the ports are actually working but the software can't communicate with one of them. I re-installed the drivers from the original CD but still no joy. Any more ideas? I'm not quite ready to junk the motherboard just yet...!

 

[manarth]

You can try restoring the TCP/IP stack - thx to bcastner for the following
&quot;Under Network Adapter, Properties, uninstall TCP/IP. Then reinstall TCP/IP. You Winsock stack entries in the registry are corrupted, and this should repair them. If you want to be thorough, run regedit and delete the two keys under HKLM\System\Software\Services Winsock, and Winsock2. Then do the uninstall, reinstall routine.

AdAware is notorious for this result. But others do it as well.
BTW, this will not work under XP. You need to use this:

http://members.shaw.ca/techcd/WinsockXPFix.exe&quot;

before you do this, check to see if you have a firewall installed. If so, try disabling it. Btw, Windows XP has a firewall built in.

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[Johnnyfartpants]

Woohoo! - I got it working again. This makes no sense whatever to me but I'll post it and see if it makes any sense to you guys....

My PC actually has 3 x primary partitions, allowing me to boot into Windows XP, 2000 or 98 respectively. After removing my friend's Belkin software none of these OS's could communicate with my laptop (at least, not using the 10/100 Base-T Ethernet) as I described.

By a stroke of luck, I'd had the foresight to back-up my Win2k partition immediately before removing the Belkin stuff. This morning (after days of frustration) I bit the bullet and restored the old Win2k partition to see what would happen. Guess what? All THREE OS's now have their TCP/IP working again and I can ping away merrily and even communicate via my Ethernet cable LAN again. The strange thing is that I didn't do anything to the other 2 partitions - only the Win2k one. So why have the others mysteriously sprung into life?

I don't understand it but I'm glad it happened !!

Cheers,

John