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wifi network not working

Last post was 28 Jul 2005 at 21:19
networking United Kingdom
  • 15 years ago

    Hello!


    First of all I am new to this forum and also new to the networking side of things. I am trying to set-up wireless network between two of my desktops and a laptop. Desktops are running WinXP Pro and a laptop WinXP Home edition. This is my hardware:


    Belkin wireless/wired router with adsl modem
    Two Belkin wireless PCI cards for both desktops (not sure I need the one that's inside the desktop that's hooked up to the router).
    Broadcom wireless card for my laptop.


    So far I have been succesfull in configuring the router. Both my dektops and a laptop are able to access the internet at the same time. Also security and MAC address filtering is in place. So I believe this side of things is working.


    My problem is that I can't see any of the computers when I go to "My network places". I ran both "wireless network setup" and "home or small office network" wizzards on all the computers, but whenever I click on "View workgroup computers" on any of my desktops after about a minute of "thinking" I get this error message:


    "Network name" is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.


    The list of servers for this workgroup is not currently available


    I think it's strange that both desktops (WinXP-Pro) display this message, while a laptop (WinXP-Home) at least displays it's shared folders when I click on "View workgroup computers". One of my desktops which has router connected to it has only one account with administrator privileges, while the other has three accounts but I always logon using the account that has administrator privileges so the above message doesn't make any sense to me. I also have Norton Firewall installed on my "central" PC but it has been configured so that other PC's are in the trusted zone.


    In short I have all PC's talking to the router, but not communicating among themselves.


    Could someone please explain to me what am I doing wrong?
    Is it worth doing everything from scratch and if so which side should I start from the networking or internet access and what sort of steps should I follow trying to network my PC's? Do I need to run any of the networking wizzards?


    Thanks in advance.

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  • 15 years ago
    Hi,

    Welcome to forum

    It sounds as if you need to do two more steps.

    1) ensure all pc's belong to same work group. This may have happened by default. Under XP go to Control Panel, System, then one of the tabs.

    Make sure you pick a workgroup name without spaces or characters other than a-z and 0-9 and you should not go wrong. Don't make name more than 15 characters long. I know manual says name can be longer and you can use some other characters, but....


    2) you need to share a directory for another Pc to see, otherwise PC is not seen on network.

    To share a directory, start windows explorer, right click on directory to be shared and click on share, and give it a name. Use same naming rules as 1) and you should be alright.

    Now in network neighbourhood you should see the PC. It may take 30 minutes before you see it - a 'feature' of microsoft.

    Any further quetsions please come back


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  • 15 years ago
    Hi,

    Welcome to forum

    It sounds as if you need to do two more steps.

    1) ensure all pc's belong to same work group. This may have happened by default. Under XP go to Control Panel, System, then one of the tabs.

    Make sure you pick a workgroup name without spaces or characters other than a-z and 0-9 and you should not go wrong. Don't make name more than 15 characters long. I know manual says name can be longer and you can use some other characters, but....


    2) you need to share a directory for another Pc to see, otherwise PC is not seen on network.

    To share a directory, start windows explorer, right click on directory to be shared and click on share, and give it a name. Use same naming rules as 1) and you should be alright.

    Now in network neighbourhood you should see the PC. It may take 30 minutes before you see it - a 'feature' of microsoft.

    Any further quetsions please come back


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  • 15 years ago

    Thanks denis for your suggestions.


    Tried both steps, still my PC's don't wanna talk to each other. I have tried pinging the PC's and here's what's come out of it:


    1) From my main desktop which has the router hooked up it could only ping itself, pinging router returned "Destination host unreachable" and so did pinging the laptop.


    2) From my laptop I could could ping the router and the laptop, pinging main desktop returned "Request timed out".


    For simplicity reasons I didn't ping my third PC, the idea being that if I could get two PC's to talk to each other I could add the third one later.


    What do you make out from these results, is my router faulty? or is the TCP/IP protocol faulty?

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  • 15 years ago


    Sorry I forgot third possibility


    3) XP firewall on PC's is stopping others getting access - I would unplug from internet now , then turn firewall off on both PC's and see if you get connected


    Now I think of following


    4) if this does not work then turn firewall off in router and see what happens.


    5) you can also try connecting from either internet or windows explorer with explicit url type address in address bar, e.g \pcname\sharename



    If this fails what ip addresses are in each pc and router ? What gateway addess do you have set in each ? What subnet mask is set in each ?


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  • 15 years ago

    Thanks again denis for your input.


    XP firewalls turned off on both PC's, also Norton Internet Security is disabled omy main PC. Tried disabling firewall on the router to no avail, didn't disconect from the internet thou (left myself exposed), anyway going to try this now thou can't see if it's gonna make any difference.


    To answer your questions here's what ipconfig/all returned on my main PC:


    Windows IP Configuration
           Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : tron2
           Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
           Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
           IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
           WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
    Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:
           Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
           Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
           Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-8D-FD-EB-B8
           Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
           Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
           IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.2
           Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
           Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
           DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
           DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
           Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 25 July 2005 14:46:55
           Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 25 July 2006 14:46:55
    PPP adapter {DBB874AA-6BE6-4BBB-B137-4EA5B32334E0}:
           Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
           Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
           Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00
           Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
           IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.216.246.107
           Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
           Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
           DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 205.188.146.145
           NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled


    I have DHCP enabled on my router so it's assigned these IP's for my PC's:
    192.168.2.2 - Main desktop with router wired to it (WinXP-Pro)
    192.168.2.3 - Laptop (winXP-Home)
    192.168.2.4 - Other desktop (WinXP-Pro)
    Also checked that all PC's are on the same subnet - 255.255.255.0


    I have no idea what's this PPP adapter you can see in ipconfig/all. It seems to have both NetBIOS over TCP/IP and DHCP disabled and is on a different subnet.


    This problem is driving me mad. It's been four days now since I bought the gear, but still can't network my PC's.
    Tried Googling the error I quoted in my original post - seems that quite a lot of people have the same problem, read so many solutions that I've already forgotten what I've tried and what's left to try. Here's a few I can remember:
    Various registry hacks to change node type to Hybrid or enable IP routing.
    Activating Guest account.
    Password protect the accounts (had blank passwords before)
    Stopping/Starting "Wireless Zero Connectivity" and "Master Browser" services.
    Disabling/Enabling "Simple File Sharing" on XP-Pro Machines.
    Checked that sharing had "Everyone" among it's groups, and that "deny access for these computers" (or similar) didn't have "Everyone" in it's list.
    Finaly I have reset TCP/IP protocol.


    And here I am with 3 PC's that still don't wanna talk to each other.


    Thanks again for your suggestions. Keep them coming.


    It just occured to me that my two desktops have NTFS file system while a laptop has FAT32, could this be the problem?

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  • 15 years ago


    Sorry for delay in coming back, very busy at this end.


    Don't worry about file system and forget hacking registry.


    Another question, I know it is a wireless router but have you tried using cables to connect to router to see if you get a better result ?


    Is simple file sharing on or off ?


    Have you changed ip number of the router ? - If so why ?


    Is master browser on or off ?


    Please turn Guest account off - stop the b* hackers


    Quote:
    Checked that sharing had "Everyone" among it's groups, and that "deny access for these computers" (or similar) didn't have "Everyone" in it's list.


    What have you done here with access rights ?


    Denis

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