home network nightmare

heres my two cents.

well start with ip adress and subnet mask clarification.

Subnet mask 255.255.255.0 means that if your ip adresses ar ethe same apart from the last octate "0" then there on the same subnet. They need to be on the same subnet to talk to each other. 255.255.0.0 means you can change the last two octates "0.0" and they will be on the same subnet. etc etc etc.<br />Ip adress pick a random number but make sure that where theres a 255 in the subnet the ip has the same number on both machines .

What operarting system(s) are you using?<br />Whats the network card make and model?

are the drivers hapily installed?<br />is the network enabled?

let me know the answers to the first two and if you can last two questions and we should happily running shortly.
 
hey that makes sense, cheers m8. Right I used to have a Novell Anthem Compat Card in both machines one running 98 the other Me. I changed the downstairs card (Me machine) to a pci mentor ethernet card put have been unable to get the two cards to talk to each other.

The computer (Me) has now been formatted and what I really need is a step by step instruction of what to do I.e 1)..... 2)......

<br />Cheers for the help so far..........
 
I am sure that I am the only one that has not gave up on this matter but here is a progress report. I have set up Both pc's with netbui ixp and tcp/ip. I have allocated the downstairs machine with an ip of 169.254.0.1 and upstairs 169.254.0.2 I have used a subnet of 255.255.0.0 on both machines and have guessed (cos I don't have a clue) a subnet of 169.254.4.30. Now I can get on each machine the network workgroup of 'dutcho' but neither machine can see the other one ????

I have pinged from downstairs to both its own ip and the one upstairs but can only get a response from its own ip address.

HELP ! What does it all mean ?
 
where does "a subnet of 169.254.4.30" come into it?

some things to try<br />1 right click my computer>properties, select device manager<br />go down to Network adapters and make sure there no red crosses or yellow warnings.

2 ping 127.0.0.1 on both machines, you should get a reply.

3 right click Network neighbouhood and select properties.

4 make sure you have a TCP/IP -> |your adapter name|, not dial up adapter!!!!

5 select tcp/IP -> |your adapter|, click properties. Specify an IP adress should be checked, IP adress should be 169.254.0.1 or 169.254.0.2 depending on machine subnet mask should read 255.255.0.0, ok that screen.

6 select the identification tab, Computer names should be unique and workgroup should be the same.

[ 31 January 2002: Message edited by: chameleon ]</p>
 
OK, you did say subnet before, default gateway is the kind of server computer. if you havent got a computer with thatr ip adress on your network then it cant be your gateway. for a two computer network you dont need a gateway, so remove it. also if you need to disable dns and wins because you dont have a server.

P.S and id avoid that forum if i were you

[ 31 January 2002: Message edited by: chameleon ]</p>
 
If winipcfg is not recognising your adapter then I think that there could be either a hardware conflict or incorrect insatllation of drivers. I had to try 3 different adaptors before my machine was happy.
 
Hi again.

I may have missed something, but did you get the card swapped out from the place you bought it yet?

Have you looked on the internet for the latest driver for the ethernet card?

Sounds to me that it's either a problem with the card or with drivers.
 
Right boys got myself another card today, installed it same problem. Winipcfg will detect the card on both machines. So I now have two ethernet 10/100 cards, one in each machine.

Guess what, they still don't want to play. No conflicts listed at all.

I ran diag disk that came with one of the cards and it sensed the network speed of 100 and that the cable was connected but some problem with loop back ?
 
May be it's too late, but you could try leaving the other system as was, and swapping out the Mentor PCI card, because this would tell you if the first NIC you bought was defective.

I've had a look at <a href="http://www.driversguide.com," target="_blank">www.driversguide.com,</a> and Mentor is not listed as a manufacturer of LAN cards. Do you have a URL where you can find the latest drivers for the card (may be in the instruction manual or README file or whatever)? What does Windows think the LAN card is exactly (name of the driver)?
 
im almost all out of ideas m8,<br />Dont quote me on this but i think that there are two types of loopback<br />Local - tested by pinging 127.0.0.1 (if that fails its your network card, driver or os thats broken.<br />External - you need a loopback cable for this and as you dont have one it would fail even if the card is working.

only other thing i can think of is setting the network speed to 10 on both PCs

and finaly my favourite if in doubt give it a clout.
 
Yes greek pig I did rule out the first network card by changing them round before installing a different one upstairs. Something I have noticed.

I use tools/find/computer on both machines. Downstairs on says Name :- Time location :- mshome comment :- (blank) The other says Name :- Gemma location :- Networkneighbourhood comment :- (blank)

Should location not be the same on both machines ? In the ID tab on networks they are.

The latest card is a unex, I have downloaded the lastest driver for this one.

Is it possible that the novell/anthem cards of old used a different type of cable ? The plug is the same and i am sure its a cat5 cable just clutching at straws now felt sure that a new network card in both machines would solve all my problems but its just cost me more money and lots of hair. Tomorrow I will find time and install the novel in both machines to make sure that the cable is ok, then when the network works (IF) I will swop the cards back. I also have a firewall, thought this might be the problem but disabling it did not help.

[ 01 February 2002: Message edited by: Dutcho ]</p>
 
Good luck - hope you get the answer tomorrow.

Let us know how you get on.
 
Well spent whole day playing around, could not even manage to get old cards working. Is there a dos application I could run on both machine that will take windows out of the equation ?

I would really like to sort this out as it is bugging the life out of me.

Just one question whats a mac address and whats it for.

[ 02 February 2002: Message edited by: Dutcho ]</p>
 
The MAC address is the lowest level address of your network card. The IP address is a higher level address, but networks do translate between MAC addresses and IP addresses. For instance, if you use the DHCP protocol to dynamically allocate IP addresses on a LAN, then your network card broadcasts a request for an IP address using it's MAC address, and so the DHCP server can send back the IP address to your PC's network controller because it knows it's MAC address. All network cards have a MAC address. It's usually held in a chip on the card, but I know that Intel send out NICs with the same MAC address, and it's the installation of the driver that ensures that the MAC address is unique on the network by changing it. This seems strange, but it shows two things I guess - Intel have run out of MAC addresses, and MAC addresses are easily changed in software if you know how. Manufacturers have defined ranges of MAC addresses, so network management software can always tell which manufacturer's NIC is on the network by the first few bytes (octets?) of the MAC address.

I hope that this (a) makes sense and (b) is correct.
 
You can get network controllers working from DOS, but it's a hell of a lot more difficult than getting them working from Windows.

I now strongly suspect your cable, because you've used quite a few network adaptor combinations, and even putting the system back to how it was, it still doesn't work.

Remember my earlier posting? Have you sat the machines side by side with a short crossover cable connecting them. I'd see if you can do this.

If you don't have another crossover cable, see if you can borrow one from someone. My NTL broadband connection needs a crossover cable, so if you've got a m8 with NTL broadband, you may find a borrowable cable.
 
If I had a spare I'd send it to you. I've only got the one, which I had to nick from work! (sorry, I mean borrow on long term loan for work purposes)
 
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