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unable to contact dhcp server - unique to XP

Discussion in 'Networking (Hardware & Software)' started by niraj, 2004/10/01.

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  1. 2004/10/01
    niraj

    niraj Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi,

    After searching these forums and coming to my wit's end (albeit, not a long journey), I have run out of ideas. Here's the situation...

    I have a dual boot Sony Vaio PC - Suse Linux and Win XP (OEM version, not SP2 unless SP2 ships with OEM systems now). The computer is new. My internet connection goes through a SMC Barricade Router to a cable modem.

    When I use Linux, I get an internet connection just fine. It establishes the IP, domain name, etc right at start up. However, with XP, I cannot get a valid IP address (i.e. a non-private IP address). I am using the onboard ethernet port (an Intel PRO1000) with TCP/IP set to get the IP and DNS automatically. I have tried to enter in a manual IP and at least connect to the router but have not been able to do that even. Also, if I connect my PowerBook using the same ethernet cable and router port, I can connect just fine as well.

    When running ipconfig /release ipconfig /renew, it times out and says "unable to contact your dhcp server, request timed out ". I checked to make sure I have my DHCP service started which I do. The funny thing is that the internet connection in XP was working for a brief moment in time. It was running somewhat "choppy" so I thought I'd release/renew the IP address and from that point on, it hasn't worked. We have 2 other desktop's connected to this router that are working fine and 2 notebooks wirelessly connected that are also working fine. I've even tried switching ports on the router and that did nothing as well.

    I've put together home networks for people so many times and have never had a problem when using an ethernet cable, only in setting up wireless so I'm even more dumbfounded by this. Any help or pointers is greatly appreciated.

    Thanks.
     
  2. 2004/10/01
    Newt

    Newt Inactive

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    Is your router providing DHCP service for your LAN? If so, I'd expect all the PCs to be getting a private address from it.

    Several things come to mind. You could have a bad TCP/IP load. Not really possible (well, maybe possible but not a good thing to try) to remove and then reinstall TCP/IP on an XP system. However, I think you'd do well to try the Netsh command described Here to reset it to all defaults and then try a normal setup from there.

    If that fails, we'll need more details about your LAN and a first step will be to get to a cmd prompt, run ipconfig /all > c:\config.txt and post the contents of the c:\config.txt file. Please do it from the non-functional PC and another NT system for comparison.
     
    Newt,
    #2

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  4. 2004/10/01
    maggie

    maggie Inactive

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    Go into Services. Make sure DHCP Client and DNS Client are both on Automatic and started. Reboot if you have to change anything in your Services. Go to a command prompt and type ipconfig /all what do you get?
    Make sure there is a space between ipconfig and / If you have messed with anything else in Services you can go to Help at the top and it will give you the default settings for comparison.
    Do you have the latest drivers for your onboard ethernet card?
     
  5. 2004/10/02
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

    BillyBob Inactive

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    My money is on the words in BOLD in the above quote.

    Especially if you WARM boot between the two.

    BillyBob
     
  6. 2004/10/02
    niraj

    niraj Inactive Thread Starter

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    The router does provide DHCP service and by non-private IP address I meant an address that wasn't of the 169.*.*.* variety.

    I use GRUB to load either Windows or Linux, is that what is considered a warm boot?

    Thanks for the replies, I'll try those things in a few hours (have a game to goto....) and let you guys know.
     
  7. 2004/10/02
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

    BillyBob Inactive

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    If you do not powerdown between I believe it would be considered as a warm reboot.

    It is possible that if a warm restart between the two is done it does not allow RAM to clear and may not allow the different setting to be picked up properly.

    I did have that problem some time back when I was dual booting between Win95 and Win98.

    Plus unless I read incorrectly you are using an OEM verison of XP which may or may not have anything to do with the problem.

    BillyBob
     
  8. 2004/10/02
    niraj

    niraj Inactive Thread Starter

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    The netsh command did the trick. Thanks for the help guys.
     
  9. 2004/10/02
    niraj

    niraj Inactive Thread Starter

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    Ok new problem...

    I can get a IP address assigned to me by my router and I get the domain name of the cable modem. Everythign seems ok. But then I try to goto a website and no matter which one I try, it gets stuck at "waiting for <website>" or "tranferring data from <website>" and no images, no text, nothing will load. Again, this problem doens't happen with Linux.

    When I set up the home network, XP enabled a firewall. It didn't work with the firewall and then I turned off the firewall and it still didn't work. I have no other firewall software on my computer. Any ideas?

    Thanks.
     
  10. 2004/10/03
    Newt

    Newt Inactive

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    For clarification of the 'private IP address' thing, the main ranges that were set up originally to be for private use - in that they will never be assigned to a live internet site - are
    10.x.x.x
    172.16.x.x - 172.31.x.x
    192.168.x.x

    The 169.254.0.0 - 169.254.255.255 - Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) - series is used for various Operating systems like Microsoft from WinME and later where the PC basically acts as it's own DHCP server and auto-assigns the address. The, too, are never given as live internet addresses.

    The 127.x.x.x range is also reserved but won't behave normally in many cases so should not be used for a LAN.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Try putting the following into your browser address bar. It should bring you to this forum and if it does work while trying the same thing by name such as www.windowsbbs.com does not, you have a DNS issue we need to track down.

    67.15.19.177
     
    Newt,
    #9
  11. 2004/10/03
    niraj

    niraj Inactive Thread Starter

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    OK, so now the internet is fully working (I didn't do anything, it just works now....). However, if I type in the website's IP address explicity like you suggested, it works alot faster. But if I use the domain name, its real slow. Excruciatingly slow in fact. All of the other PC's are loading the webpages a ton faster when using just the domain name.

    Any thoughts?
     
  12. 2004/10/03
    Newt

    Newt Inactive

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    Need the above now.
     
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