ICS IP assignment issues

New clients on my network always try to assign themselves a new IP instead of using 192.168.0.1 as their internet gateway. There is one client that functions correctly on the network and DHCP is enabled on it. I've tried manually setting the other clients as well as using DHCP and no dice. My home network was find once upon a time and poof, just stopped working one day. Thanks in advance for any help provided.

 

How are they connected, switch, hub, router? What do you add new clients to?

 

its a netgear 8-port hub/switch.

i add the clients to the same workgroup: WORKGROUP
and file sharing works, printer sharing works, etc...
but no internet.

 

How is the internet connected?

 

If you'd describe your Internet service and ALL of the network equipment with make/model, we'd probably be better equipped to advise you. If you don't have an ISP that gives you multiple public IP addresses, you need a router in the mix somewhere, I don't see that mentioned.

 

cable internet.
cable modem -> server (2 NICs) -> hub/switch -> other clients

im interested in the router comment because i've never changed hardware and one day the other clients (all but one) ceased internet functions. but that one client still surfs the web fine along with the server as its gateway. thanks for the help so far everyone!

all computers running xp sp2 some have on-board NICs, some PCI NICs.

 

Very likely your problem is XP service pack 2. The "one day" was the day it was installed on your machines. SP 2 installs a firewall and that firewall is turned on by default. Turn that off on the non-working clients, and that might fix it. It could be an issue on the server too, if the working client was actually on and working at the time the firewall was installed, it may have made an exception for that machine, where since the rest weren't on, no firewall rule was created. This is all speculation of course...

-Scott

 

the non-web-functional clients stopped working long before sp2 was even out. i installed sp2 thinking it might help them but no dice. ive tried every combination of firewall on/off on all machines...no dice. i also found today that the clients that have no web abilities cannot ping the server at 192.168.0.1 or by name (although when pinging by name it is identified by 192.168.0.1). its a code 65 failure. these clients can, however, view shared files and access some internet domains like google. i can even do a google search, i just cant leave google's domain after that.

 

I guess I still don't see where the make/model of networking equipment was answered...

 

oops...my fault
hub/switch is netgear DS108

on-board NIC for server is Intel PRO/100 VE
PCI NIC for server is 3Com EtherLink XL 10/100 (3C905C-TX)

NIC on client that works correctly is on-board Intel(R) 82559 Fast Ethernet LAN

NIC on client #1 is 3Com 3c905TX-based Ethernet Adapter (Generic) - desktop
NIC on client #2 is Realtek RTL 8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC - laptop