[SOLVED] Serious help needed (desperation)

[bitman]

Hi
I think you guys are my last hope. I have a small home network / wireless network. The hardware is good. The settings appear to be good. But although I can reach the internet I cannot communicate with other computers on the network. All the other computers communicate just fine.

At the moment I am sitting at my computer (192.168.1.2 - kids) which is connected to a USR modem router. Next to me is my sons computer (not up yet - teenager) 192.168.1.3. I can't find it or ping it. Pinging results in 'Destination host unreachable'. I've tried turning off IPRouting but although all the registry values are set to 0 it still says routing enabled. Network name is WORKGROUP on all computers. Firewall is off.

Any help at all most welcome.

ipconfig gives :-

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : kids
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 6:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
#2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-17-42-CF-5C

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 5:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-E0-18-AE-3A-2D
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

C:\DOCUME~1\MARTINR>ping 192.168.1.3

Pinging 192.168.1.3 with 32 bytes of data:

Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.3:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

On my sons computer pinging mine gives Request timed out.

Best Regards

Bitman

[johnwill]

Failure to PING is almost always a firewall issue. You need to start there. Here are some basic steps to follow.

Turn off any firewalls for debugging. If the firewall is the problem, you'll have to configure it to allow access to "trusted zone" addresses. Note that some firewalls must be completely uninstalled to stop them from affecting your networking.

PING each computer by IP address, and if successful, PING by name. You can obtain the IP address of a computer by opening a command prompt (DOS window) and typing IPCONFIG. This should work for any Windows version. A failure here needs to be corrected before you go any farther.

Check your Services are Started on all PCs: Workstation, DHCP Client, DNS Client, Server, TCP/IP Netbios helper, Computer Browser.

All computers should be in the same workgroup for computer browsing to function properly. File & Print Sharing has to be enabled on any computer you wish to share files or printers from. You also need to actually share the resource in question from My Computer, right click on the drive/printer/folder, and select sharing.

If you encounter difficulties accessing computers that are visible in Network Neighborhood, make sure the computer being accessed has an account with the same name/password as the system connecting to it uses to login.

While the default NetBIOS setting is correct for normal network configurations, it's possible for it to be altered, and it costs nothing to make sure it's correct. NETBIOS over TCP/IP must be enabled for normal network browsing.

[bitman]

Hi Johnwill

Windows Firewall is turned off as I said. There are no other firewalls installed on the system. Netbios over TCP is enabled and TCP/IP Netbios helper is started. The system is set up to use fixed IP addresses and I can ping or talk to only the router Which means I can only access the internet.

I did have an issue with a free firewall a long time ago which wouldn't uninstall properly but I followed the manual procedure for removal. As it wasn't being used on an internal network at the time I thought no more of it.
I'll check the list of files being started when the computer runs.

Any other suggestions much appreciated.

Best Regards

Bitman

[johnwill]

If you can't PING the other machines, there's a firewall in there somewhere.

[la1]

the other pc, can you get to the internet on it ?
you may want to check the tcp/ip and dns settings in the network cards properties, also check the subnet address.

if the other pc can not get to the internet or ping anything else on the network.
go to devices, under the hardware tab in system in control panel. Make sure there is not a red x or ! next to your network card. Then unplug your cat5 cable at the NIC. There should be an LED that will go out and come back on when plugged back in. Do the same at the router with the other end. Also try another port. Also simply turning the router on/off does the trick some of the time too.

[bitman]

Hi LA1

The other PC's (my wifes laptop and my sons gaming machine) can talk to each other and the internet. My machine will only talk to the internet. Its not the router cos I've swapped over the cables. I don't think its the hardware cos this machine has two network ports and I've tried both. Replaced network cable and reset router. Swapped cables from mine to my sons but the fault stays with my computer.

The network uses fixed network addresses, mine is 192.168.1.2, my sons 192.168.1.3. The network name is WORKGROUP on all the computers. Details on first post.

I suspect johnwill is correct in that part of a PC Tools firewall installed some time ago still remains on the system blocking local network access.

I've looked at the startup programs using startuplist (better than msconfig) and all seems OK. I'm going to have a play with hijack this today, work permitting, to see if this can shed some light on whats going on.

Any other ideas most welcome

Best Regards

Bitman

[bitman]

Hi

OK sorted.

There is a program on here called Peer Guardian which was blocking the local network. My first instinct was to remove it completely but as my wifes laptop is on a wireless link I have decided to just set it to allow connections to the computers on my network.

It actually seems a pretty cool program now that I know its here. I've set it to show up in the tray to remind me.

I'd almost given up trying to fix this but was dreading having to do a reinstall.

Many thanks for your help

Best Regards

Bitman