DaveG
11-23-2002, 12:49 PM
Hoping someone can help me here. If not for me, for the sake of my PC's which are facing being hurled through a window!
I have two XP Pro boxes that I am networking together, using Actiontec PCI 802.11b NIC's. The new PC, "AL" is an Athlon XP system and is connected to the internet via an ADSL modem. The old PC, "ZIGGY" is a K6-2 system, sharing AL's internet connection and sharing files. I even have both PC's able to open remote desktop sessions to each other (not at the same time obviously!).
As for the network, currently I'm not using any WEP or firewall yet, not until I'm happy with the network. The network is a peer to peer, eg a workgroup, which I have named, and I've set my cards to "AD-HOC" mode. I'm not using DHCP, nor am I letting window's configure any of my network options. I have used the TCP/IP settings to manually configure the IP addresses of the two machines. using 192.168.0.x with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Furthermore I've set ZIGGY's default gateway to the value of AL's IP address, and I've used my ISP's dns addresses. I did this because when I was trying to use DHCP I was getting 169.x.x.x addresses asigned which I'm told meant things were going wrong.
To cut a long story short I have disabled all power management on both PC's (including the bios's), and the network connection holds with one exception. If either of the PC's have some sort of password request triggered by inactivity then the connection dies on me and the only way I can reinitiate it is to reboot either of the machines. This even includes if I have the screen saver switched on without requesting a password when it closes. Another more relevant example to me is if I'm running a remote desktop session for any length of time. The PC I am connecting to obviously goes to the password/welcome prompt, and if it stays like that for any length of time (by means of my running the RD session), on average 15 minutes, then the network connection dies on me, and I have to reboot again!
The driver/software for the NIC's have advanced settings, however I have no documentation (I phoned Actiontec technical support, and they said they didn't have any documentation either!). Hence I do not know what any of them do! I have found information for some of them on this web site, but their settings still elude me. I could use the brute force method of trying all combinations of settings, but given the number of combinations and a 15 minute wait a time, I'm really hoping to find a 'smart' solution.
I really hope someone can help. If I've missed any pertinent information, let me know.
Many thanks in advance,
Dave
I have two XP Pro boxes that I am networking together, using Actiontec PCI 802.11b NIC's. The new PC, "AL" is an Athlon XP system and is connected to the internet via an ADSL modem. The old PC, "ZIGGY" is a K6-2 system, sharing AL's internet connection and sharing files. I even have both PC's able to open remote desktop sessions to each other (not at the same time obviously!).
As for the network, currently I'm not using any WEP or firewall yet, not until I'm happy with the network. The network is a peer to peer, eg a workgroup, which I have named, and I've set my cards to "AD-HOC" mode. I'm not using DHCP, nor am I letting window's configure any of my network options. I have used the TCP/IP settings to manually configure the IP addresses of the two machines. using 192.168.0.x with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Furthermore I've set ZIGGY's default gateway to the value of AL's IP address, and I've used my ISP's dns addresses. I did this because when I was trying to use DHCP I was getting 169.x.x.x addresses asigned which I'm told meant things were going wrong.
To cut a long story short I have disabled all power management on both PC's (including the bios's), and the network connection holds with one exception. If either of the PC's have some sort of password request triggered by inactivity then the connection dies on me and the only way I can reinitiate it is to reboot either of the machines. This even includes if I have the screen saver switched on without requesting a password when it closes. Another more relevant example to me is if I'm running a remote desktop session for any length of time. The PC I am connecting to obviously goes to the password/welcome prompt, and if it stays like that for any length of time (by means of my running the RD session), on average 15 minutes, then the network connection dies on me, and I have to reboot again!
The driver/software for the NIC's have advanced settings, however I have no documentation (I phoned Actiontec technical support, and they said they didn't have any documentation either!). Hence I do not know what any of them do! I have found information for some of them on this web site, but their settings still elude me. I could use the brute force method of trying all combinations of settings, but given the number of combinations and a 15 minute wait a time, I'm really hoping to find a 'smart' solution.
I really hope someone can help. If I've missed any pertinent information, let me know.
Many thanks in advance,
Dave