lost LAN connectivity after forced shutdown

Hi,

About two weeks ago I installed Apache 2 on my XP home ed. sp1 box which is networked to four other machines running either W95 or 98.

About a week ago my wife said the computer shut itself down after warning that it would in several seconds. All worked well after, only this morning the same thing happened for no apparent reason.

Since rebooting I've lost connectivity over my LAN to the other four boxes. On another machine I can connect to the three remaining peers, but not to the XP box.

I tried the network repair and it said it couldn't restore the IP address. Then I rebooted, same thing.

Where do I go from here?

Marty

 

System Restore

worth a shot, no?

 

If System Restore didn't work or you would rather explore other options first, how are the systems networked? Hub and router, router, daisy-chain?

Have you considered it might be a bad cable? To check that, swap it out for a cable from one of the other systems that can still access the network.

Several troubleshooting approaches for XP Network problems are on this Practically Networked page. It's a place to start, anyway.

 

Miz & Larry,

Thanks for the suggestions. None of them worked!

I did a little poking on my own and have gotten things working a bit better but don't really understand what's going on and how to finish the job.

under tcp/ip properties changed

obtain an ip address automatically

to

use the following ip address [192.168.0.1]
subnet mask changed itself to 255.255.255.0
(no default gateway)

when doing this 'obtain dns server addr automatically' changed itself to 'use the following dns server addresses' but with nothing populating the preferred and alternate dns server ip's.

So now my shares are visible all across the network, which is a definite improvement. However internet connection sharing is not working.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Marty

 

follow up

Looking a little more I discovered that ICS was not enabled. Several days ago after the first time that XP shut itself down my internet connection stopped working. I set up a new one... just a new dial up that is and all seemed ok.

Now this, having to reassign the ip to a static # and losing ics. Don't know what the real problem is but I have a funny feeling that a reinstall lies somewhere in my future.

FWIW first thing I did yesterday after having the initial problem was a virus scan which came out rather clean.

Mart

 

use the following ip address [192.168.0.1]
That is normally not the best address to use since it tends to be the default for the machine acting as your gateway.

With a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 you can use any address from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.254 and all will be in the same network and able to talk.

Also on the machine with the static address, probably a good idea to go into Services and stop then disable DHCP.

A little more information would help. You mentioned ICS so I assume you are not using one of the router/switch devices to manage the network.

In that case, please do the following and post the contents of the resulting text files

From both the ICS Host PC and the problem PC

start~run~cmd and then
ipconfig /all > c:\ipconfig.txt note the space before and after the >)

 

>>Also on the machine with the static address,
>>probably a good idea to go into Services and
>>stop then disable DHCP.

Ok Newt, I've done this. Maybe my machine will be less sluggish as a result.

>>You mentioned ICS so I assume you are not
>>using one of the router/switch devices to
>>manage the network.

Here's my setup. Have one machine using XP home ed. with a dial up connection. Four other boxes running either 95/98. These 5 are connected through a netgear switch and with ICS on the XP box may all access the internet.

>>In that case, please do the following and post
>>the contents of the resulting text files

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : delliver
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-74-C0-5E-69
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :


** so is my ip addr ok under these circumstances?

- should mention that it's the XP box - 192.168.0.1 on the local network which also has the dedicated ip addr with my ISP

- I notice under Dhcp enabled it says no, yet this was done last night and I only stopped the Dhcp service this morning

Thanks in advance,

Marty

 

I notice under Dhcp enabled it says no, yet this was done last night and I only stopped the Dhcp service this morning
That happened when you put in the static information and is only sorta true.

The ICS host should be using the 192.168.0.1 as it's internal IP address with no gateway listed for that network card. All other PCs should be using 192.168.0.1 as their gateway address.

Briefly, this forces all the other PCs to find the internet (gateway in this case = internet gateway) thru the host PC and it routes all their requests thru it's "real" gateway that points to your ISP.

So the config on the network card you listed is exactly correct for the ICS host. And since it would be acting as your DHCP server if you use auto-addressing for the client PCs, it must have a static address or get real confused trying to assign an address to itself. Not to mention the other PCs having a gateway address that probably didn't point anywhere so they couldn't get out to the real world although they would do fine on your local internal network.