sporatic network

2 windows xp home computers using wireless cards and wireless router. both computer are set up with client for microsoft network, tcp /ip & printer/file sharing.
both computers belong to the MSHOME Workgroup

I call computer 1: computer 1 (for simplicity sake)
I call computer 2: computer 2.

when i go to windows explorer, my network places, entire network, microsoft network, mshome, on the computer 2, i see computer 2 but not computer 1, when i go to computer 1, and click on the MSHOME Workgroup, I get a busy hour glass then then it does not see the network.


I fooled around with it a bit, removed the printer and file sharing, removed the shared printer then reinstalled them, (even unplugged the wireless network card) and the network comes back only for abt a day, if lucky the goes away...

Any ideas from the network guru's here..

Thanks in advance.

David

 

Next time it happens, see if you can ping the missing computer from the other - and try from both.

Are you using DHCP from the router to automatically set IP address and subnet mask?

I'm betting we finally get down to a loss of signal with the wireless stuff but easier to rule out other possible causes first.

 

The internet connectivity of both computers remain the same, my thought is a corrupt file in the network settings is the most logical answer I can come up with since the internet is working fine with both of 'em since I did an sfc /scannow of the culprit computer.

Any more advice is appreciated.


Many thanks to all;
David

 

To repeat:

Next time it happens, see if you can ping the missing computer from the other - and try from both.

Are you using DHCP from the router to automatically set IP address and subnet mask?

a corrupt file in the network settings is certainly on the possible list but down at about #15 or #20. There is a method you can use to basically reload TCP/IP in XP (although you cannot do as you could with older OS versions and remove/reload it) but no sense in doing that unless it looks like your problem is a bad network load.