Small LAN issue

Eoin_too

Hi, I'm trying to source a problem with a small peer-peer home LAN setup between XP-Pro and 98. All adapters, protocols and services are setup (tcp-ip, file-sharing etc..), ip's are assigned and physical cabeling is in place. If pinging a remote machines ip fails, can I assume that this is a problem with my cableing?

Thanks,
Eoin.

Eoin_too

I suppose what I mean is; how can I rule out a cableing problem.

Eoin.

ColinM

Have a look at the nics on the machines to see if the connection indicator led is lit - if so, cable is ok.
If you don't have a hub and you are directly connecting just two machines together, make sure you are using a crossover (cross-wired) cable.

Gavin

also check that no firewall is running on XP if you haven't already !

Gav

Eoin_too

Thanks for the replies, XP firewall is disabled. Each nic has a steady green light when the cables are plugged in, is this a standard way of checking the cables are ok? I thought that once I had adapters and tcp-ip setup I'd be able to ping each machine, this isn't the case.

Eoin.

Gavin

What are your ip settings ?

Gav

Eoin_too

Static ip for XP machine is: 192.168.0.1 with mask 255.255.0.0
and for 98 machine: 192.168.0.0 with same mask.

Should ip's be allocated dynamically instead?

Frank Grimes

Try using 192.168.0.2 instead of 192.168.0.0, that's a network address.

andrew163

hi,

if Grimey's suggestion doesnt work (although it should), I had the exact same problem when I was setting up a network, and this also helped:

1) disable ANY firewalls you might have running, or reconfigure them to allow all traffic through your network card. Also, if you have anti-virus software running, some AV packages have built-in firewalls (e.g. Trend PC-Cillin), so make sure that the firewall component (if any) is disabled.

2) delete all network protocols except TCP/IP (according to Microsoft tech. support, the support for more than 1 protocol on Windows 98 (not sure about XP) is a bit dodgy). This won't make much difference to the performance of your network, however you may not be able to play a small number of games in multiplayer mode.....but most modern games should be fine.

3) Set your subnet address to 255.255.255.0 on both computers (I don't know why this helps (if it does at all), but according to the settings Microsoft Tech. Support gave me, thats what it should be).

If the lights on your network cards are lighting, then chances are that your cabling is fine.

If nothing here helps, you might want to try http://support.microsoft.com or the microsoft.public.win98.networking newsgroup.

Hope this helps.

Eoin_too

Thanks for the input, but still can't get the thing going. I reckon the cable's at fault, one of the NICs is now showing a steady amber light.

Eoin.

MadKevo

Originally posted by Eoin_too
Thanks for the input, but still can't get the thing going. I reckon the cable's at fault, one of the NICs is now showing a steady amber light.

Eoin.

Is the setup just two machines back-to-back using a crossover cable, or are you using a hub or switch to interconnect the two (or more?) machines?

An amber LED usually means that it's operating at 100 Mbps (usually a good thing!), but if the machines are back-to-back I would expect the other NIC to have a similar LED lit..., so maybe there is a cable fault.

/MK