Thanks, everybody, for all the good suggestions. This week, I'm going to make an action plan list out of all the above. Then get "the kid" (my 20 year old) home to help me. As he says, "You're real dumb on computers".
FWIW, I started trying things yesterday. I lost the internet and was LUCKY to get back to where I started.
One question, many folks talk about pinging a computer.What is this? How?
"Ping" is a command ran at Start/Run and is usually followed by an ip address. It can be used to test internet connection, i.e. "ping 4.2.2.2" will test the path to that ip address on the web. You can also ping site names, i.e. "ping
formatting link
" and it will return the ip address of that site. IF you want to test the local area network (LAN) using this, it would be best to assign STATIC ip addresses to each machine. You CAN do this without adversly impacting your stated environment. Just make sure that the first three octets match your router config and that the last octet is not the same on all machines, i.e.: router 192.168.0.1 machine one 192.168.0.10 machine two 192.168.0.11 machine three 192.168.0.254 (actually 1-254 that does not conflict with any other system, router, etc. can be used on all systems) When you assign STATIC ip addresses, you will need to assign the GATEWAY address which is the router address. XP can use STATIC ips and still DHCP the DNS addresses from the web. If one is using anything less, you need to enter the DNS info, also. The router is intelligent enough to see addresses in use so DHCP service will not assign an inuse ip address. Also, assigning STATIC ip addresses will make an ip-based LAN more stable as addresses won't be changing for mapped drives, etc. Respectfully, Ron Moore
Ping is used to check to see if you can reach another address on your network. Open a command window and type:
ping 192.168.2.1
That is a typical address for your router. Here's what I get when I do it on my system: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C:>ping 192.168.2.1
Pinging 192.168.2.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64 Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64 Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64 Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.2.1: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 1ms ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you ping an address that isn't being used you get something like this:
If you want to ping machine B from machine A, you must first know machine B's IP address. The easiest way I know of to discern such from a Windoze box is to open a DOS window (aka a "command window") and type
ipconfig /all
and then look for a line like e.g.:
1 Ethernet adapter :
Description . . . . . . . . : D-Link DFE-530TX+ PCI Adapter Physical Address. . . . . . : 00-50-BA-4D-37-DF DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : No THIS ==>IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.40 make an action plan list out of all the above. Then get "the kid" (my 20
|In article , Jon Elson says... | |>4. To avoid having to set up one of the machines to be a DNS (domain |> name server) you can set the computers to not require |> DNS to communicate. And/or, you can define the IP |> addresses of all the machines in your local network, |> and then they should be able to communicate between |> each other without needing any other services. | |Often the DSL modem is a default DNS and this configuration |cannot be changed. That's how it is in my setup. | |Our modem spits out a single ethernet port, and to allow |simultaneous access to our machines here, I put in a simple |hub that splits this off to N connections. I think there |is some simple anti-collision feature at work inside this |magic box. | |The individual machines cannot talk to each other here, btw. | |Jim
My setup is identical - DSL modem from Earthlink, into a NetGear home networking kit router, thence to NetGear NICs. Inter-PC access worked fine before, then my wife rearranged the office and they did not work. Then she changed to XP (I'm on
98) and it was hopeless. I've studied on it several times with no success. Rex in Fort Worth
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.