home network on xp.

my houses computer were networked thru a computer, but we just changed to have it set up right to the modem. all of the computers work fine except the one running xp. it worked when it was set to go thru a computer.

 

Could you describe your setup in more detail?

- how many PCs and what operating systems

- how networked now - USB, Ethernet Network Cards, etc. and hub/switch/what

- how networked before

- the specific problem with the XP system

 

there are 5 computers in theory...only 3 seem to be able to work at once. all the other computer are running 98. before i had it hooked up to a cheap computer that was left on all the time but it ran too slow and it crashed the internet atlot, so i switched to having the modem connected to the hub. it says nothing is wrong with my computer, is just will not detect the network. or it says the xp computer is the only one on the network, while the three that are connected to the net are on a differnt network under the same netwrok name.

 

cbaker, thanks. That info helps. But leads to more questions.

- Modem: dial-up or broadband
- Are you actually using a hub as opposed to a router/switch? If so, what modem sharing program and which PC is it running on?

As to the "different networks" thing, it is very possible. When spoken of in this context, a network is a subnet - a group of IP addresses that are designed to work together. And exactly what range will work together is based on the subnet mask.

So if you use a netmask of 255.255.255.0, your IP addresses all have to match in the first 3 octets. For instance, if one PC uses 192.168.0.1, the others will have to use 192.168.0.x where x is any number from 2 to 254. But a PC using 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 would be on a different network. They could ping each other (if plugged into the same hub) but couldn't really work together.

You'd get much the same effect if the addresses were correct but the workgroup names were different.

I'll stop this here and wait on answers from you.

 

help

Hi!
I am living with cbaker, and I can update on the situation.
Last night, I reconnected everyone (all 5 computers) to the main computer. We are using an old hub, an old computer (as our main computer) and we have a cable connection to the internet.

Unfortunately last night after I got everything reconnected, the only computer that had access to the internet was the main computer.

All the other computers had access to the windows network and we also had access to Kazaa (an internet file sharing program), however programs like MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express would not work.

So this morning, I brought the cable modem back downstairs and connected it directly through the HUB... now we are back to the beginning again, where 2 or 3 people have full internet access and everyone else is up a creek without a paddle.

It doesn't really matter to us which way it is hooked up.. we just all want to have internet access.

please help us

 

OK. Cable modem helps out.

My best suggestion to you is to spend around $50 and get yourself a broadband router/switch. Linksys, Dlink, Netgear all make good ones.

The $50 price will get you one with only 4 ethernet ports but you can use a crossover cable to plug the hub into a port and it will work fine. Regular cables for all the PC to switch or hub connections.

Let the router/switch do it's thing by setting all the PCs to get their network settings automatically. Just put in the IP address of the router/switch as the default gateway.

You should be good to go with the above and as a side bonus, your internal PC to PC network will be lots faster and should talk to each other just fine if all share the same workgroup name but have different PC names of 15 or less characters and only alpha-numeric characters. Avoid spaces in the name.

If the $50 will be a problem, post back and I'll have a bunch of other information to get from you.

As a final thought, if you are using Kazaa rather than KazaaLite or something, you really need to be running at least a couple of spyware/malware cleaners on all your PCs. Ad-aware and Spybot are good and have free versions. Kazaa loads a PC with applets that want to "call home" and send out information. Can cause PC performance problems and network/internet traffic jams. Yuck.

 

networking

Hi!
Thanks for all your help so far. I think that down the road $50 won't be a problem, but for now, if there is a temporary solution.... it would be greatly appreciated if you could suggest one.

Thanks for all of your help so far.