Lan connection was just working :/

[BigBirdZ28]

both PCs use winXP pro & i have removed the firewalls from both of them. they connect through a 3com 16port switch.

so i finally hook up ADSL on my brother's PC, set ICS on & enable DHCP & setup my sister's PC to obtain settings from my bro's through dhcp. & everything works PERFECT.

I finally have the house off of the fibre optic connection & im happy as hell tht i have it to myself.

middle of the night i get a call that the network isnt working. what the hell happened !

my brother has only used the PC for 15 minutes & left the house 7 now it doesnt work on my sister's PC.

when i get home i have a look & the adsl dialup & lan connections are both disabled.

GRRRRRR

so i enable both & check my sisters PC. it doesnt work. i cant ping my bro's pc (dhcp server 192.168.0.1). yes i checked t omake sure the ip is correct & that it's still sharing the connection.

my sister's IP is now APA !!! (automatic private addressing) 169.....

?!??!

set the pc to auto get settings & i still cant ping bro's pc.

used the wizard on my bro's pc to enable the home/office part & everything looks fine

BUT WHAT THE HELL, NO LAN LIGHT ON MY BRO'S LANCARD & his light on the switch is off !! but the icon in the task bar says it's connected. only packed being sent, not a single one recieved.

i tried a different port on the switch, no lights.

i tried my own laptop cable & it didnt work (the cable is working right now, so it's fine)

i checked the hardware profiles & the lancard is not disabled.

I dont think my brother even restarted his PC since i set everything up, what is going on here ?? i dont want to put the adsl connection on my sisters pc just yet because my brother's lan light doesnt work at all !

i would really appreciate some help, thanks in advance !!!

thank you thank you !!

edit note: i will buy them a router in about 2 months cause im waiting for a price crash, need a solution till then

[Sterling_Aug]

Try moving the NIC to another slot on the mobo.

If that fails to work, then swap the NICs between both PC's.

[DVOM]

I was never able to get ICS to assign IP's reliably. So I always set static IP's.

I also wasn't able to get XP Pro to network reliably until I installed NetBEUI on the networked machines.

Before I installed NetBEUI, when the network worked everything was fine. When it didn't work I couldn't ping the other machines, and none of the machines could even see themselves on the network.

[Sterling_Aug]

Try using the analogx.com proxy program instead of ICS.

It is free and takes only seconds to install and configure.

http://www.analogx.com

[BigBirdZ28]

thank you for your replies.

I just checked it & it works fine now, like the hell i went through a couple days ago never happened. :x

how could this be ?

no-one has been using it !!!!

[DVOM]

BigBirdZ28, that's exactly the same behavior I was getting. One day it would work, next day it wouldn't.