dropping Network connection with XP Professional

Hello gang, quick question here. I have a 2 computer peer to peer network at home both machines running Windows XP Professional.

The network consists of a cable modem which has the cable hooked to it and the NIC card plugged into the port on the Linksys router/switch/firewall. Both computers are plugged into the switch in seperate ports.

I have the firewall seperating my internal 192.168.1.* network from the external Internet connection with Comcast. The router/switch/firewall polls the Comcast DHCP server for an IP address and internally my workstations poll the switch for an IP address on the Internal network. No problems, everything works like a champ.

I did not have problems on the network until I upgraded my wife's Compaq (933 mhz) from ME (cough) to XP Professional.
What is happening is that all of a sudden with no warning whatsoever she looses network connectivity. In other words she can not browse the Internet with IE or get email. All the IM programs dont work either. I can surf the internal network without a problem.

It seems that the only way to fix it is to reboot her computer.


I do this sort of stuff for a living so I feel as if I have looked for all the obvious things. What am I missing here? The XP upgrade is what seemed to be when the problems on my wifes computer began. I have not had the problem with my Gateway 866 mhz machine.

Any input would be welcomed.

James Moffitt
jcmoffitt@jcmoffitt.com

 

Try static IPs on your PCs and turn off DHCP service from your router.

I had some of the same issues and still am not positive where they came from but this kludge worked so I haven't put real much thought into it.

May be a NAT issue with some of the home router/switches where it gets confused at lease renewal or something.

 

thanks for the tip

I will try this, thanks

 

Similar problem, not sure if what you say is the best thing for me. Here is my setup- Six computers networked through a Netgear router to a Comcast Cable Modem. 3 running Windows XP (2 pro, 1 home), anyway. My computer periodically drops off the network without any warning. I have found by simply unplugging the network connection and re-plugging in, it will resume it's network connection within 2 mins or so. I have also run into an error after rebooting that says "Another server is already running on port 80" (I think it says port 80). I'm thinking that this might be the REAL problem. Maybe two servers are competing for control of my computer. If I didn't mention it, my computer is Running XP Pro and is the only computer on the network with this problem. I had been running 98SE on this computer with the same configuration, and it never dropped off. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tazman

 

IIS ?

If you have a "server" running on Port 80 then it sounds like you have a version of IIS (Internet Information Server) running on Windows XP Pro. If I am correct IIS is not installed by default during the XP install so you have to install it on purpose.

This is an irritating problem and I hope that we can figure it out.

 

What is the proper way to remove IIS? Can I assume that it is not a necessary program to have running if I want to keep my home network and internet service?
Thank you

 

Add Remove Programs

Have you tried Add Remove Programs from the control panel?

 

Actually, yes, I did. And as I thought, that would have been way too easy. It was not listed there. The only place I've found any mention of IIS is when you right click 'My Computer' and select Manage. Under 'services' it shows IIS Admin running. I disabled it there, but this doesn't seem to stop my computer from dropping off the network. It shows so many other things running under that selection and I have no idea what most of them do. I have saved the entire list as an excel file if someone would be interested in letting me send it to them to review. Maybe something in there is causing my problem. Or James, maybe you might want to look at it and compare it to what you have running on your computer. There is the possiblity that one of these applications is causing us to drop offline.
Thanks,
Larry

 

send me the excel spread sheet

Scan the file for viruses and make sure it is clean and then zip it up and send it to me at jcmoffitt@jcmoffitt.com and I will see if I can recognize any of the applications.

Thanks

 

Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Add/Remove Windows Components > Internet Information Services.

Are you saying IIS is not listed there?

 

Gosh, how could I forget that?

Windows components, Windoze Components......

I forgot about that. Yes, on my XP PRO version I do have that installed and I would imagine that the other fellow does to.
I think that you have to install that during a custom install though.
I run IIS 5.* at work on our Exchange server for OWA.

Thanks for updating where to look. It is hard to remember everything.

 

You're welcome. Yeah..IIS is not installed by default in XP Pro. I know what you mean about not remembering everything. I provide tier 3 support to over 100 internet applications support analysts. That'll keep you on your toes.

 

ummm? You would think since I consider myself fairly experienced with computers I would have looked under the Window's Component not just the add/remove programs.. but we're not going to question that right now. I have completely removed the IIS component and some other management tools that were selected on my computer and not my wifes. We will wait a while and see if this solves my network dropping problems. If it does not, I will send the zipped file to you Mr. Moffit.
Thanks again to all of you for your help (so far )