Unable to network

Hello, here is my problem.

I'm taking a course in which I use a laptop computer. I have been in the course for over two years and during this time I have networked this laptop to my desktop many, many times. Recently I had to exchange my laptop at school for another one. The day before I switched I hooked my computers up together to back up some files to my desktop and could not get them to connect. Everything was the same as it has always been (No Networking settings were changed) and I checked the cable to make sure it was fastened properly.

I finally gave up on it and went ahead with the laptop exchange. Now I went through the settings and again I cannot get the computers to see each other for some reason.

Both computers run w/ Windows 98. Both have TCP/IP protocols. I set the desktop I.P. to 192.168.100.1 and the laptop to 192.168.100.2. both subnet masks are set to 255.255.255.0. The network 'workgroup' names are identical on both computers and the network cable has been checked many times to make sure it wasn't loose. File sharing is checked on.

I have a feeling the problem may be with my desktop? (I had problems in the past with conflicting IRQ's and such, although windows does not find any problems with my NIC) The reason is that on my desktop when I d-click Entire Network (In Network Neighbourhood) it comes up with an "Unable to browse network" error message. I went through the entire troubleshooting guide in windows and was unable to resolve this problem.

If anybody has any suggestions or needs more information about my problem please reply, and thanx for taking the time to read this novel.

MolsonMan

 

I may be asking the obvious, but somtimes that doesn't hurt.
Are they both assigned to the same workgroup and do they each have a unique name (that hasn't changed) in that group?

John

PS May want to try a different cable (known to be working) in case the other one got damaged.

 

You didn't specify what you did to diagnose the problem. Can you ping either machine from the other? Do you have NETBIOS over TCP/IP enabled. Do you have file and print sharing installed? Are you logging into the machines with Microsoft Client, not hitting ESC or Cancel to get to the desktop?

 

Firstly to Basset:

"Both computers run w/ Windows 98. Both have TCP/IP protocols. I set the desktop I.P. to 192.168.100.1 and the laptop to 192.168.100.2. both subnet masks are set to 255.255.255.0. The network 'workgroup' names are identical on both computers and the network cable has been checked many times to make sure it wasn't loose. File sharing is checked on.

And yes, each computer has their own unique name.
The cable I'm using has been the same cable I've used for over two years. Nothing has happened to it since that would damage it so I will assume it not to be the problem... although I wouldn't rule it out completely.

And John.... I'm not sure how to ping to each computer and both clients ARE Microsoft TCP/IP protocols. File sharing is enabled on both. I have the exact same setup that I had when it worked... it just stopped working... If you could tell me how to do the ping test, I think it would probably tell me a lot...

Thanx.

MolsonMan

 

Open a command prompt on one machine, and type:

PING (IP Address)

where (IP Address) is the IP of the other machine. The correct results are below, if you get timed out messages, you don't have connectivity to the other machine.

You should see something like:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pinging win-xp [192.168.2.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.2.99: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.2.99: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.2.99: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.2.99: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.2.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

 

Thanx man, I'll try that as soon as I get home and hopefully post the results tommorow.

MolsonMan

 

Hmmmm... well it seems that this problem may not just be a networking problem anymore... I got home to try out that ping test only to discover that Windows locks up during the start up sequence. It can only load up in 'safe mode' now...

I guess I have a lot more diagnosing that I had expected.

Ah well....

MolsonMan