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Old 11-03-2008, 02:53 PM
 
8 posts, read 16,083 times
Reputation: 13

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Situation: I am taking a Networking Tech class at my school and each group has their own set of four computers. There are four groups, and we're all set up on our own network. The school got old computers and then bought new ones, so each group has two old computers and two brand new computers. The brand new computers came not already assembled, so we had to put them together (screw in motherboard and all other pieces/parts) and then we installed Windows XP to each computer. This way every computer on our network is running Windows XP. The old computers are from the school so we don't have complete access to everything, but the new computers have no restrictions. The two old computers are named 4.1 and 4.2 and the two new computers are 4.3 and 4.4.
Problem: Each of the four computers needs to be able to ping and each needs to be able to file share with all four computers in our group. All computers can ping each other, although I believe now 4.1 is down because someone made it a dual-boot since they didn't reformat the hard drive and it's too old of a computer to handle that, so we are working on reformating. Overall though, they all can ping each other. 4.4 cannot file share with 4.3 but can file share with 4.2. 4.2 can file share with only 4.4, not 4.3. 4.3 can file share with 4.4 and 4.2. Also, when you search in Windows Explorer for the IP address of 4.3, it's not recognized whatsoever.

HELP! We have been working on this for days and I just keep getting more and more frustrated. Anyone have any solutions!?!
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Old 11-03-2008, 05:08 PM
 
Location: DFW
307 posts, read 1,178,260 times
Reputation: 139
OTTOMH

Have you made sure the proper services are binded to the NIC?

Made sure that the proper services are running thru services.msc?

Drives are set to share appropriately, any permissions or workgroup issues?

If they can ping each other it's likely not a subnet issue or anything.

Last edited by Arcane; 11-03-2008 at 05:30 PM..
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Old 11-03-2008, 10:36 PM
 
8 posts, read 16,083 times
Reputation: 13
ok well, i'm not a huge tech person so what you said was just jibberish lol. But I am going to pass it onto my boyfriend and see if he can figure that out, maybe those are the problems. I don't think there's any problems with permissions or workgroup issues, that I can answer right now. It's set up exactly the same as the computer 4.4 right next to it, which is one of the new computers and has exactly the same stuff on it. Thanks for the reply though, anyone else have any more ideas? Sorry I won't be able to try anything until Wednesday because we don't have school tomorrow because of Election Day.
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Old 11-04-2008, 12:29 AM
 
Location: Seattle, WA
1,368 posts, read 6,490,488 times
Reputation: 542
Okay, so they can all ping each other. Check.
Let me make sure I have this set up right:

Sharing: (this is set up such that A -> B means A can see and share with B)

4.4 -?> 4.1
4.4 -> 4.2
4.4 -/> 4.3

4.3 -?> 4.1
4.3 -> 4.2
4.3 -> 4.4

4.2 -?> 4.1
4.2 -/> 4.3
4.2 -> 4.4

4.1 -?> 4.2
4.1 -?> 4.3
4.1 -?> 4.4

So, 4.2 and 4.4 are talking to each other just fine. However, not with 4.3.
But 4.3 can talk to 4.4 and 4.2 without issue?

These issues were the banes of lanparties. We had to do some ridiculous workarounds to fix these.

Simple questions:
A) All using same subnet mask?
B) All have the same default gateway?
C) What is the default gateway?
D) All in the same subnet?
E) Are they on a domain?
F) Static or Dynamic IP addresses?


Steps to dive into the problem:
1) Go into the properties of the ethernet connection for each of them, make sure the same protocols, services, etc are enabled. For some reason, we found we needed to enable the NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS protocol to get computers to talk. (To those about to yell at me for being stupid, I KNOW it SHOULDN'T do anything but it DOES)
2) Go into Tools > folder Options > View Tab in explorer, and verify that all are using or are not using "use simple file sharing".
3) Go into services.msc (run: services.msc) Make sure that all 3 match in entirety. (unless someone can remember/wants to find which services are explicitly required for all networking... I sure can't)


Arcane, it could be a routing issue. But, I highly doubt that they're tossing that into this problem.


Thats what I'd try first. And... be prepared for a very long, very difficult struggle with windows. I have had times where computers just refused to talk to each other, and yeah.


Oh, go into cmd and type arp -a. See if its resolving the IP to a mac address. That could be useful info.
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Old 11-04-2008, 02:17 AM
 
Location: Tyler, TX
23,487 posts, read 23,823,319 times
Reputation: 14836
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcane View Post
If they can ping each other it's likely not a subnet issue or anything.
Not necessarily - unless they have a WINS server running (unlikely, given the scenario), Windoze uses will use broadcasts to locate other Windoze boxes. If the netmask is set wrong, the broadcast address will also be wrong, unless they happen to be using masks with corresponding broadcast addresses (e.g. /27 and /24 netmasks, and the IPs in use are above .224).

I've come across this problem numerous times. Without WINS, Windows just isn't very reliable when it comes to finding other computers to "share" with.

Try accessing via IP - in any explorer window, type \\192.168.0.5 (replacing the IP with the one from the machine you can't communicate with). That's the method I've had the most luck with that didn't involve a lot of time to figure out... The key is the double backslash - that tells Windows that you're looking for another computer via their sharing protocol.

It's been a while since I've done desktop support, so I can't recall off the top of my head all the things I've done to solve this (like I said, I've seen it a LOT), but that's your best shot at an easy solution, IMHO.

Of course, you should also make sure that the firewall that's built-into Windows XP is disabled or has exceptions for file sharing, but you've already done that, right?
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Old 11-04-2008, 02:20 AM
 
Location: Tyler, TX
23,487 posts, read 23,823,319 times
Reputation: 14836
Quote:
Originally Posted by Radek View Post
For some reason, we found we needed to enable the NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS protocol to get computers to talk. (To those about to yell at me for being stupid, I KNOW it SHOULDN'T do anything but it DOES)
SMB was originally designed to ride on top of NetBIOS/NetBEUI, but it's run directly on TCP since Win2k.
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Old 11-04-2008, 02:23 AM
 
Location: Seattle, WA
1,368 posts, read 6,490,488 times
Reputation: 542
And we had problems with WinXP.

I dont understand why we're still arguing this point many months after I originally made it.
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Old 11-04-2008, 03:12 AM
 
Location: DFW
307 posts, read 1,178,260 times
Reputation: 139
Yea, it could a routing or subnetting issue still. But I think more info is needed really. Like how the addressing is being assigned and how are they being linked.
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Old 11-04-2008, 12:29 PM
 
23,534 posts, read 69,968,609 times
Reputation: 48957
Quote:
Originally Posted by mousie199103 View Post
Situation: I am taking a Networking Tech class at my school and each group has their own set of four computers. There are four groups, and we're all set up on our own network. The school got old computers and then bought new ones, so each group has two old computers and two brand new computers. The brand new computers came not already assembled, so we had to put them together (screw in motherboard and all other pieces/parts) and then we installed Windows XP to each computer. This way every computer on our network is running Windows XP. The old computers are from the school so we don't have complete access to everything, but the new computers have no restrictions. The two old computers are named 4.1 and 4.2 and the two new computers are 4.3 and 4.4.
Problem: Each of the four computers needs to be able to ping and each needs to be able to file share with all four computers in our group. All computers can ping each other, although I believe now 4.1 is down because someone made it a dual-boot since they didn't reformat the hard drive and it's too old of a computer to handle that, so we are working on reformating. Overall though, they all can ping each other. 4.4 cannot file share with 4.3 but can file share with 4.2. 4.2 can file share with only 4.4, not 4.3. 4.3 can file share with 4.4 and 4.2. Also, when you search in Windows Explorer for the IP address of 4.3, it's not recognized whatsoever.

HELP! We have been working on this for days and I just keep getting more and more frustrated. Anyone have any solutions!?!
OK, let me take a crack. First, from your description, it look like you have static IPs and a logical system of naming. Excellent. (However, I would avoid using 1 or 2 as the last number for any computer unless it was acting as an internet gateway.)

The best way to proceed is to go through a logic tree. Eliminate the extraneous, verify the core processes, and start adding on.

All four can ping around, so the transmit and receive are supposedly working properly on the NICs. (You didn't notice any lost or delayed responses did you? That could be a problem) I'll assume this isn't a wireless network? You only have four computers - IIRC there is a limitation of four or five computers on XP Home, so have you stripped out all references other than what resources you plan on using? No duplicates or dead linked resources- networked printers, etc.? Strip out everything. Start by making sure that all computers are in the same workgroup. Set your workgroup name to something simple but different than the default. Try WG as a workgroup name. Make sure each computer and drive have a unique name within the workgroup, such as Computers C1, C2, C3, C4. Drives as C1DC, C2DC, C3DC, C4DC. Set Microsoft sharing on all.

Reboot all computers. Open up task manager processes and look for anything different between the units. Look especially for firewalls and anti-virus programs. If the units aren't connected to the net, stop the firewalls and antivirus programs and set the \\C1\C1DC drive up as shared. See if it is accessible from the other units. If so, disconnect it in network places, and repeat with the next, and so on until you know each one can act as a full server in the group.

If one unit can't act as a server, strip off any processes that aren't vital and retry. If that doesn't work, start replacing the NIC software. If that doesn't work, start looking at the windows files and swapping copies of working ones into computers with non-working sharing. If that doesn't work, swap NICs to verify there isn't a problem following a particular NIC or NIC combo.
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Old 11-04-2008, 01:13 PM
 
Location: The DMV
6,561 posts, read 11,195,420 times
Reputation: 8590
Quote:
Originally Posted by mousie199103 View Post
Situation: I am taking a Networking Tech class at my school and each group has their own set of four computers. There are four groups, and we're all set up on our own network. The school got old computers and then bought new ones, so each group has two old computers and two brand new computers. The brand new computers came not already assembled, so we had to put them together (screw in motherboard and all other pieces/parts) and then we installed Windows XP to each computer. This way every computer on our network is running Windows XP. The old computers are from the school so we don't have complete access to everything, but the new computers have no restrictions. The two old computers are named 4.1 and 4.2 and the two new computers are 4.3 and 4.4.
Problem: Each of the four computers needs to be able to ping and each needs to be able to file share with all four computers in our group. All computers can ping each other, although I believe now 4.1 is down because someone made it a dual-boot since they didn't reformat the hard drive and it's too old of a computer to handle that, so we are working on reformating. Overall though, they all can ping each other. 4.4 cannot file share with 4.3 but can file share with 4.2. 4.2 can file share with only 4.4, not 4.3. 4.3 can file share with 4.4 and 4.2. Also, when you search in Windows Explorer for the IP address of 4.3, it's not recognized whatsoever.

HELP! We have been working on this for days and I just keep getting more and more frustrated. Anyone have any solutions!?!
When you say "4.4 cannot file share with 4.3..." does that mean 4.3 can't see 4.4's files or do you mean the opposite? If its the opposite, it seems like 4.3 is the issue as no one can see 4.3. I'd also check the Windows firewall first. The other thing you can do since ping works is to telnet to port 135 (telnet <insert ip address> 135). If it works, you should get a respond that looks like "connected to <hostname>" or even just blank out like you're in. Otherwise, it'll just time out. If it times out... you most likely have an issue with the MS portion of the game (firewall, service is there etc...) as ping means that the networking is there..... from an IP standpoint. Hell... telnet to yourself (localhost)... that should tell you right there if its an issue with the service or not.

routing should not be an issue since they're on the same broadcast domain. If they're not.. then you've left off a very crucial piece of info.
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