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jpc165
07-11-2005, 10:53 PM
For the past few days I have had an annoying home network problem that I can not fucking fix. Here is my setup:

I have a comcast cable modem hooked up to a netgear wireless g router. I have one pc wired to the router. And a labtop that usually connects wirelessly via a netgear wireless pc card. Both pcs connect to the internet without any problems. And until a few days ago both pcs could see each other on the windows workgroup they are both assigned to. I was also able to use Remote Desktop from my labtop to control the other pc. But now these two pcs can't see each other and I can't figure out why...

I can't even ping one from the other and vice versa. The router is pingable from either machine. The router has both machines listed with the correct name and ip address. Both machines are running xp sp2 with the windows firewall disabled. I use the sygate firewall. I tried turning it off on both machines, but that did not solve my problem either. Both pcs are set up for DHCP and have the same subnet. I have Netbios enabled on both, windows file and printer sharing enabled, both pcs have shared folders enabled, and both pcs have common users and passwords.

Heres the wierd thing. If i hook the labtop through a wire connection and disable the wireless card, i can ping the other pc, and access its shares. But as soon as I use the wireless connection the pcs can't see each other again. I can't see any differences in the network configurations of the LAN versus Wireless connection.

What the fuck is going on here? Its probably something stupid but I can't figure out why this happened out of nowhere.

okie
07-11-2005, 11:36 PM
did you try reseting the router? just power it down and backup to let it grab the system all new again?

zagman76
07-12-2005, 02:36 AM
is the actual service disabled (Security Center) or is the Win FW just "not enabled" on your NIC? One of the changes in SP2 was the ability to Enable/Disable the FW for different NICs. Previouely, it was either ON or OFF for all NICs. Perhaps windows has it turned on for one of the NICs in the network...? What version of XP are you using?

Also - try updating your router firmware (if there is an update available) - keep in mind though you will loose any changes you made to the router once updating the firmware.

jpc165
07-12-2005, 09:00 PM
is the actual service disabled (Security Center) or is the Win FW just "not enabled" on your NIC? One of the changes in SP2 was the ability to Enable/Disable the FW for different NICs. Previouely, it was either ON or OFF for all NICs. Perhaps windows has it turned on for one of the NICs in the network...? What version of XP are you using?

Also - try updating your router firmware (if there is an update available) - keep in mind though you will loose any changes you made to the router once updating the firmware.

I'm running xp pro sp2 on both machines. On both the wireless connection and the LAN connection for the laptop, the windows firewall is turned off.

When I came home today and turned on my labtop I was now able to ping and access the other pc's shares. I didn't do anything to the network configurations. It just magically worked. It would be nice to know what the fuck happened.

I'll look into updating my routers firmware just for the fuck of it. But all is good for now..

Could it have anything to do with a browser master confliction among the two machines? I did notice some wierd errors in the event viewer system log.

zagman76
07-13-2005, 01:19 AM
Could it have anything to do with a browser master confliction among the two machines? I did notice some wierd errors in the event viewer system log.

That shouldn't cause a conflict, unless you have one machine set up to be a server to the other (file server, printer server, etc.) Even so, it should't be an issue.

Hmm... perhaps if you're running any anti spyware apps, or anti virus, or even a software firewall - one of those pieces of software might have hiccupped, and caused the two machines to be locked out of eachother. I've seen that before with Zone Alarm, where a normal Windows process for soem reason sets off the FW, and pretty much locks out other machines...