I have a home ethernet network with three computers on it. out of the clear blue one of them has no connections in My Network Places and another one My Network Places is missing all together. needless to say there is no conectivity but all three can access the net. I have a dsl modem and a switch to connect them to each other and the net.

Sounds like you are getting some interference from the wireless due to a neighbor just installing a wireless network or possibly 2.4 GHz cordless telephones.

1 more thing may be the wireless card simply "died". GOod luck!

It's not wireless just good ole cat5e.

Not sure how long everything has been working for you.

Perhaps you closed down the Network shares? Since everything can access the internet, it is either related to the switch itself or the shares on your systems

What Operating Systems are you running on the three systems?

Do you have any other devices on the same network (printer, etc)?

DHCP or fixed IP addresses?

What are the three current IP addresses of the systems - are they in the same subnet?

Two of them are running Win XP Pro andthe other Win XP Home. Nothing else on the network besides the switch and DSL modem/router. IP adresses 192.168.254.2, 192.168.254.3, 192.168.254.4 - Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0 & DHCP.

did you try to ping the router thru command prompt? Is it timing out or is it reaching the router? Try pingin your network card first,then the router .


What kabeerme was asking you is if you "Automatically obtain an IP address" or do you have the manually set up in the network properties?

Who is your ISP?

EDIT: LOL,I see your still accessing the net. Did you attempt to re-run the Windows Network Wizard?? Make sure all the workgroup names are the same? Windows firewall or a software firewall on that would be blocking this?

I'm not using static IP addresses and my ISP is frontiernet.net. I'm not quite sure how to ping the network card but I reached the router. I ran the wizard on all three computers and the workgroup is the same. I'm running ZoneAlarm but it doesn't matter whether it's running or not.

quote:

Originally posted by KAPPY:
I'm not using static IP addresses and my ISP is frontiernet.net. I'm not quite sure how to ping the network card but I reached the router. I ran the wizard on all three computers and the workgroup is the same. I'm running ZoneAlarm but it doesn't matter whether it's running or not.

You try to uninstall and reinstall Client for Mircosoft Networks and File and Printer sharing?

From the PC with IP address 192.168.254.2, click start, run and type in \\192.168.254.3 and click OK. See if it will bring up the shared folder(s) and/or printer(s) on that PC.

Try the same for \\192.168.254.4

Do the same from the other PC's to the other IP addresses. That could narrow down which PC is having an issue.

On a peer to peer network like yours, one PC is assigned as the "mster browser" system which the other PC's use to browse the local network. One of the XP Pro machines is probably set as the master browser since Microsoft uses a system where the most advanced OS takes the job as master browser. Windows 98 beats 95, Windows 2000 beats 98, XP Home beats 2000, XP Pro beats XP Home, servers beat workstations. If you have multiple PC's at the highest level OS on your network, the one that was online first is the master browser.

quote:

Originally posted by KAPPY:
I'm not using static IP addresses and my ISP is frontiernet.net. I'm not quite sure how to ping the network card but I reached the router. I ran the wizard on all three computers and the workgroup is the same. I'm running ZoneAlarm but it doesn't matter whether it's running or not.

To ping the network cards you would do:

From 192.168.254.2, open a command prompt and try
ping 192.168.254.3
ping 192.168.254.4

You can do this from the other PCs as well. BUT, most likely the pings will be successful, and the problem lies somewhere in the sharing area on the master browser (as Hawk referenced).

You also mentioned this was "out of the blue" - could you expand on this? Were all three systems up and running, with the sharepoints working, and then they started not working? Or was the failure first noticed it after the systems were booted the first time that day, and they were working the day before? Were you adding/removing hardware/software on any of the systems?

quote:

master browser

Is there a way to find which computer is the master browser and/or change it?

This is becoming comical.....

On a WinXP machine by default, the C$ sharing is turned off. You need to enable sharing to access any of your other machines on the network. Follow Packer Hawks suggestions and you should be able to see if you have a share active. Once you enable sharing, XP will ask you "Are you sure you want to enable sharing" It's the "idiot proofing" by Microsoft.

quote:

Originally posted by KAPPY:

quote:

master browser

Is there a way to find which computer is the master browser and/or change it?

Have you followed any of the advice given so far?

FRZ, "simple file sharing" is enabled by default on XP machines that are not part of a domain. That's enough to make the PC visible on the network.

quote:

Originally posted by FRZ:
It's the "idiot proofing" by Microsoft.

Now there is a oxymoron

quote:

Originally posted by KAPPY:

quote:

master browser

Is there a way to find which computer is the master browser and/or change it?

There is, and the only way I know of to set it is through the registry.

IF, and only IF you are comfortable making changes to the registry, it is under hkey_local_machine\system\current control set\services\browser\parameters. Change the value for MaintainServerList from Auto to No on the computers that you don't want to be the masters, and Yes on the one that you want to be the master(usually the fastest/best computer). The changes should take place immediately, but it doesn't hurt to reboot. Since there are only 3, I would shut them all down after making the changes, then bring up the master. When that's up bring up the other 2.

This may not fix your problem, but it shouldn't hurt to do either way.

If everything was working and nothing changed, try power cycling the switch. I've seen that hose up some connections on more than one occassion.

quote:

Originally posted by KAPPY:

quote:

master browser

Is there a way to find which computer is the master browser and/or change it?

Infamous Master Browser. We've been beating our brains out at work on Master Browser errors and, as I just eluded to in the previous post, have started looking at flakey switches as the culprit. When connectivity is lost, the Master Browser error appears in one of the PC's event logs. A hard reset of the switch and connectivity was restored. Replacing the SMC switches in question with a Cisco and thus far no problem.

If you want to go the direction of twidling Master Browser settings, there are notes on the net on how to tweak the registry to disable. Do a search in Google User Groups.

Oops, just saw sherpajosh's response.

quote:

Originally posted by PackerHawk:

quote:

Originally posted by KAPPY:

quote:

master browser

Is there a way to find which computer is the master browser and/or change it?

Have you followed any of the advice given so far?

FRZ, "simple file sharing" is enabled by default on XP machines that are not part of a domain. That's enough to make the PC visible on the network.

Oops! Oh yeah, that's right.

Um, have you simple unplugged the modem and router/switch for about two minutes then plugged them back in?

You may have had a electrical power failure where the home electricity went off and on for a nano second but can messed up a modem or router/switch and simply unplugging them for a bit will allow them to reset and function again.

quote:

Originally posted by TimthePackerFan:
Um, have you simple unplugged the modem and router/switch for about two minutes then plugged them back in?

You may have had a electrical power failure where the home electricity went off and on for a nano second but can messed up a modem or router/switch and simply unplugging them for a bit will allow them to reset and function again.

If that was the case he wouldnt be getting internet service either ,Tim. That use to happen to be all the time when I had my old 10/100 linksys switch.

KAPPY, any update? Are you still working this problem?

quote:

Originally posted by BackThePack:

If that was the case he wouldnt be getting internet service either ,Tim. That use to happen to be all the time when I had my old 10/100 linksys switch.

LOL, I kind of scanned over that part.

Yes, I'm still struggling with it. I've tryed the Master Browser thing it did was give me IP conflicts so I changed them back to Auto. The XP Home machine can see one of the Pro machines but when trying to do anything it gets a message "not accessible". I've also unplugged the modem/router and the switch to no avail.