Won't connect to network

[BeaverBob]

I have a Gateway notebook computer (Windows XP Pro) which will not connect to my network (wired) because it is unable to obtain an IP address from the router. Two other computers (Windows 98 SE system, and Windows 2000 system) work fine through the router. The Gateway computer works fine when I bypass the router and connect the computer directly to the DSL modem, so that tells me the computer's NIC is working properly. I've checked the router settings and can't find anything amiss. I've gone to the Attached Devices page of the router settings and asked it to refresh the settings--it still won't find the Gateway compter.

Occasionally I get a bubble message on the Gateway system that says I have a "Windows - System Error There is an IP address conflict with another system on the network" I have no idea what action I need to take to resolve this conflict. When I get this error, I have gone to CMD window and executed IPCONFIG--I get 0.0.0.0 for the IP address.

This must be some sort of a setting that's corrupted, but I haven't been able to figure out what it is. This computer used to work fine on the network, then all of a sudden it wouldn't connect to the network. After a few days, it worked fine again for a while, then quit working and I haven't been able to get it to connect to the network since.

Any suggestions?

Also, if anyone knows of a good reference book that explains all this network stuff including troubleshooting, I'd like to know what it is.

 

[krenkey]

you are trying to use an ipaddress allready in use set up a static ip address for the laptop in question.

Hope this information helps.

Mike

 

[vacunita]

I agree with Krenkey. It seems your laptop is trying to use an Address that another one of the PC's connected to the router, is using.

I'm going to take a wild guess, and say that when it worked, one of the other computers wasn't on.

You'll have to check the IP settings in the connection properties, and change the address.

say from 192.168.0.X to 192.168.0.Y.


----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[captaincrunch00]

If you jump into the router config it'll say something like "How many addresses should I give out?" and I bet it's set to two. You'll have to change that to 3 or more so all 3 computers can get on at once.

I agree with both posters above me, and I'm just expanding a bit!

 

[ncotton]

I take it all the other machines on the network are workstation OSs', and theres no server OS.

When you say "router", do you actually mean ROUTER, or do you mean switch/hub? Is there any real need for a router for sharing internet in a 3 machine house?

Unless your modem is actually the router, which would also be enabled with DHCP. Check the DHCP settings.

The address of DSL modems are typically 192.168.1.2 / 192.168.2.1 or 10.0.0.1. The easiest way around it, is to jsut configure your wired ethernet adapter to have a static IP that is within the subnet of the modems ip address, but is outside of the DHCP pool range. Even better, disable DHCP on the modem and use all static addresses. (when i say better, i mean just to sort your problem out without having to learn about DHCP leasing, operation and conflicts.

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[BeaverBob]

I appreciate your comments. So I set the IP address to static on the Gateway computer as suggested. Now the router (Netgear RP614v2) sees the Gateway computer on the network. Problem is, the Gateway computer doesn't see other computers on the network, and they don't see the Gateway computer, but they do see each other. Also, the Gateway computer can't access the Internet through the DSL modem, but each of the other computers do.

The router is set up to act as a DHCP server; and has it's starting IP address set to 192.168.0.2 and it's ending IP address set to 192.168.0.50, so there shouldn't be a problem that way.

 

[stduc]

All the computers need to be in the same network, with the same subnet mask. In your case the IP address's all need to be in the range 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.50 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.

I see no reason why they can't be set to get an IP address automatically. I'm wondering if the Gateway has an alternate IP address set up that is causing a conflict? If so remove that and re-try 'get an IP address automatically'.

If setting IP address's manually you will also need to set up the default gateway. Which I assume will be your router, which I also assume will be 192.168.0.1

 

[ncotton]

assign your IPs statically, disable DHCP on the router. Set your default gateway to that of your adsl router .2/, set your routers IP adderss with .2 and gateway of the ADSL modem .1.

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[guitarzan]

BeaverBob,

Personally, I would try figuring out why the router is not assigning an IP to the Gateway computer, but there is nothing wrong with setting a static IP as long as you make sure that the static IP that you set is outside the DHCP range of the router (that is, not between 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.50). Also verify that the gateway of the Gateway (let's refer to the Gateway computer as the "notebook!") ... verify that the gateway of the notebook is the router's IP address (which I'm assuming is 192.168.0.1).

From the notebook, ping the router (PING 192.168.0.1). If you don't get a reply, then you still have a problem getting the notebook to see the router.

If the notebook can see the router, see if the notebook can see the internet by pinging an IP address outside your network. For example, PING 4.2.2.2 (a public dns) or PING 216.239.37.104 (google). if THAT doesn't work, there's likely a setting on the router that's incorrect.

If the notebook can see the internet, try pinging a domain name. For example, PING

http://www.google.com.

If that doesn't work, DNS is not set up properly on the router (or the notebook).

Finally, see if the notebook can ping another computer in your network. Find the IP of another computer in your network, verify that it starts with 192.168.0.x, and then try pinging it. If you can't, it is likely firewall software on one of the computers.

 

[cupid11213]

i'm fairly new at thi guy's so please forgive if i may be wrong or my advice of no help, but i would suggest that you make sure that under local area connection properties you have file and printer sharing for microsoft networks installed as i recently set up a small network and was having the same propblem with other computers seeing me on the network.

also i'm not too sure about this but from what i understant the subnet mask should always be 255.255.255.0 and i have seen other machines that have different ones (ex: 255.255.240.0) but i'm not to sure if that would make such a difference although i believe it would.

just my 2 cents.

Good luck.

Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, while others wonder what happened.

 

[BeaverBob]

After fighting this problem for what seemed like forever, we finally determined that there must be an address conflict between the DSL modem and the router. Anyway, changing the router IP settings to the 192.168.10.* range solved the problem. The DSL modem was "locked" into 192.168.0.1. Thanks again for all your help.