Beffling XP connectivity issue!

[eraserhead187]

This has been driving me nuts for a couple weeks now. Here's our setup:

4 boxes running XP Pro, in a peer-to-peer home network. One of these, let's call it STUFF, acts as a server for streaming audio and video to the other boxes in the house. We also have it hooked up to a television to watch video through. Our router is a Linksys WRT54G, with wireless-g, although all of the boxes that we are running are cabled to the router with Cat5E.

Until a couple weeks ago, none of the other boxes had any trouble pulling files from STUFF. At that time, one of the other computers on the network, let's call it BOX1, began having intermittent connectivity issues. I would be watching a video, copying a file, or connecting to STUFF using Remote Desktop, and after a moment or two, would lose connectivity altogether on BOX1. BOX1 would lose its IP address, and could not connect to STUFF, our router, or the internet. Also cannot ping any other computer on the network, or the router. If I try to open a share on STUFF while the connectivity is down, it reports an error message that the share is unavailable. These disconnections always occur in the middle of a file transfer, or at any point while I am connected to STUFF via Remote Desktop. I have the latest firmware installed in both the NIC(Marvell Yukon Gigabit) on BOX1 and the router.

After these disconnetions occur, I cannot obtain a IP lease from the router unless I either disable and then enable my network card, or restart the system. Then everything is fine, but if I attempt to connect to STUFF in any way, it happens again. I do not have any internet trouble until I connect to STUFF from BOX1. None of the other computers have any trouble connecting to BOX1 or STUFF. The problem only exists between BOX1 and STUFF, no matter which direction files are headed.

I should also add that Event Viewer does not give any events or error codes when this happens. The only error even that occurs on BOX1 is when it cannot obtain an IP address via DHCP. The only events that occur on stuff say that a master browser election is being forced, and this does not seem to occur at the same time.

BOX1 has XP SP2 installed, while STUFF has only SP1. I thought that for this reason, and the fact that the hardware in BOX1 is far superior to that of STUFF, there may be an issue with the computers fighting for master browser. I set the IsDomainMaster on BOX1 to FALSE, and on STUFF to TRUE. Still having the problem. I'm about out of possibilities here, any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much!!

Bobby

 

[ejn74]

do you get a message in the bottom corner of the desktop saying thre is limited or no connectivity?

 

[eraserhead187]

Nope, nothing. If I observe the tray icon, I can see it attempting to send, but it doesn't receive any frames. Why some issue between the two systems would cause me to lose my IP address lease is beyond me. I have since managed to fix the problem. I did all sorts of different maintenance and tried everything else I could possibly think of to get this working, and it did- but I'm not sure what finally did it. Very weird. Nothing in the event log of either system that would give any kind of hint as to the problem. The strangest thing is that all I had to do to temporarily restore all connectivity was to disable, and then immediately reenable my NIC. Perhaps this will come in handy to somebody else. Thanks!

 

[Electronic Punk]

Why not set a static ip address, skips the whole DHCP issue.

 

[o0RaidR0o]

Definitely go with static ip's. Most broadband ISP's provide DHCP, so you should turn off DHCP on your PC's and router, not needed, also DNS service not needed.

Also keep in XP is notorious with network shares, you may have to install NWLink Protocol and enable within the Internet Protocol in the advanced/wins tab NetBIOS over TCP/IP.

When you create your shares donot use sharename with "$" to remove adminshare. Also add to permissions the login user for that PC.

Good Luck.

 

[Admiral Michael]

Definitely go with static ip's. Most broadband ISP's provide DHCP, so you should turn off DHCP on your PC's and router, not needed, also DNS service not needed.

Also keep in XP is notorious with network shares, you may have to install NWLink Protocol and enable within the Internet Protocol in the advanced/wins tab NetBIOS over TCP/IP.

When you create your shares donot use sharename with "$" to remove adminshare. Also add to permissions the login user for that PC.

Good Luck.

From what I have quickly found NWLink is for Netwear setups. Which is not needed in this setup. Also, there is nothing wrong with DHCP (you've mentioned using static in 2 posts) and unless trying to troubleshoot is a great service.

Also, since there is a router involved the ISP DHCP has no play in the LAN IPs.


EDIT: I just noticed that this thread is 6 months old. Why resurrect it?