No internet access over Novell network

[Timbob505]

Here goes everyone:

Small network at a church running Novell NOS. All PC's are running win98se and the 32 bit client. Novell runs fine on all computers - all network drives are visible and accessable from each pc. Problem is with 2 pc's. They can't access the internet. We have dsl and a linksys befsr11 router. The router is set up to assign IP addresses to the computers for internet access and printer access. The two computers that are having problems do not get assigned an IP by the router and get their own addresses not part of our local network. (ie. 168.254.x.x when it should be 192.168.1.x)

I've tried a different NIC and no change. I checked the connections and they are all good. I tried to renew the IP address and there was an error - the DHCP server couldn't be found. I tried specifying an IP address and that did nothing either (except the printers worked).

The settings for the network cards are: obtain an ip address and use dhcp for wins, everything else is blank. (no dns, gateway needed) This is the same as it is on all the other PC's so I don't know why these two don't work.

When I specify my own IP address, I can get to the router setup page and change the settings, but when I refresh the DHCP table, nothing changes and the PC's that I need to be added aren't. I cannot manually add PC's to the table as far as I can tell.

We have 3 hubs (don't ask) and a patchpanel for the pc's, server, and router. The hub that these 2 pc's are on is working and I get link lights for the ports that they use. Other PC's on the same hub have internet. Anyone have any ideas why??? This is somewhat confusing and frustrating to me and I cannot figure why these two pc's cannot get online. :confused:

Any and all help and ideas are welcomed!!

Timbob

[primo]

i recently had the same problem. I was using NetGear 310 NIC's and they just would not work. I changed to Linksys LNE100TX cards and I immediately had internet. Also I know you said you checked the cable but try a different station cable ( from the wall jack to the NIC ) from one of the computers that is working. And you also could try plugging your patch cable into a known to be working hub port. Possibly you could check too, in network neighborhood, NIC properties, advanced, media type and make sure you aren't set for full duplex. Hubs will not allow full duplex operation. try these ideas for starters.

[Timbob505]

Thanks for the quick reply. I ended up specifying an ip address for the two computers and set up the router as the gateway and added the isp dns info as well. I disabled dhcp on each of these computers. Now it seems that the router has kicked my dad off as well so we are gonna configure his. I guess the dhcp is dying - I hope the router isn't on its way out too!

I wouldn't think it is the network cards, especially since last week it was all working. I rebuilt one computer with a new cpu and motherboard. It had a netgear 312 which I switched to a 310 and still had the same problems. The other pc uses an intel adapter, so I'm doubtful it was a linksys/netgear problem.

I think a firmware update will be coming shortly...hopefully that will fix it.

Thanks again for the quick response!


Timbob

[primo]

Timbob, glad you got it fixed. Incidentally, I have used all the Linksys routers and the one you have is the only one that ever gave me a problem.
Hope the fix stays fixed.