WLAN Problem

[PacE]

Hello All, I'm a newbie around here so I'll try my best to explain my problem with the hope that someone can help.

I have 2 pc's that up untill recently have worked fine with their network. My HOMEPC (winxp) connects straight to the internet via a modem & ethernet cable. My laptop (win2000 pro), connects to the HOMEPC via a built in WLAN card on the laptop. The HOMEPC also has one built in too. The laptop is my works one, so I can't change the operating system and I can't use it to connect direct to the internet as it only has a virtual network to our head office that connects through dial-up. Hence my surprise when we discovered that enabling the WLAN allowed us to surf the net, great for the missses in the living room !

When we first had the HOMEPC all we did was turn it on, turn on the LAPTOP and hey presto, they connected to each other and that was that untill last week. Now, the laptop will not connect to the internet at all, however it will still connect to the HOMEPC to view files / folders etc.

The HOMEPC has got ICS enabled, but it will not 'auto configure' the IP for the laptop. I don't use windows on the HOMEPC to set-up the network as the operating systems arn't compatible (i've tried the flash card method from running the wizard but it says it's not compatible when trying to run it on the laptop). I use HP's own software that supports my WLAN card. It associates the 2 pc's but when it tries to create the ip's it all goes wrong. If i manually input the Local Area Connection on the HOMEPC to 192.168.0.1 / 255.255.255.0 and change the properties on the laptop's connection to 192.168.0.3 / 255.255.255.0 then they can communicate to each other, access each others drives, but the laptop just won't connect to the internet.

I hope i've not confused anyone (probably have) but i'm at a loss as to what to do next. I've even took the drastic steps of formatting both pc's and still no joy in getting it working again.

There are no hardware issues showing in Device Manager and i've uninstalled / reinstalled both cards on both machines several times in order to try and resolve.

P.S I do have administration rights on the work's laptop :)

I would be most grateful for any help, as I've now spent 4 days and 5 formats trying to resolve this :confused:

[M/Q]

It apears that the problem is that you are not configuring the correct default gateway or DNS servers in either computer. Does the home PC access the Internet correctly? If so add those DNS/name servers to the notebook's configuration. Then use the IP addr of the Home PC as the default gateway on the notebook. Then see if that works.

It sounds like you have a modem with an Ethernet connection. you may want to consider getting a wireless router and then having both computers be clients of it. That way you do not have to use ICS or use processor time on the Home PC. Just a thought.

[PacE]

Thanks for getting back to me M/Q

On the laptop I have changed the properties of the Local Area Connection to:-

IP: 192.168.0.5
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
DG: 86.MY.IP.DY

and the Local Area Connection for the laptop on the HOMEPC is:-

IP: 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
DG: 86.MY.IP.DY

The HOMEPC connects to the Internet fine but the laptop still won't.

[PacE]

I've now added some screenshots from when it was all working fine. It's stopped working now and i've compared the settings and there all the same still :confused:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v671/paceturner/Network/?action=view&current=LaptopConnected.jpg (LAN PROBLEM)

[M/Q]

Go to a command prompt and type ipconfig /all on both computers and and publish here what the results are.

Also while in a command prompt try this command on both computers.
ping www.yahoo.com

If that did not work try
ping 68.142.226.49

Let us know what happened, please.

[PacE]

OK...This is the IP config from the HOMEPC

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 86.20.117.88
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.252.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 86.20.116.1

and the ipconfig from the laptop is now:-

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Autoconfiguratio IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 169.254.187.141
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .: 255.255.252.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :

As you can see when you compare these cmd's to the screenshots that i posted, they have now changed. When I took the screenshots before, that was when the connection was working OK. When it stopped, the ip's for both machines were still as they were in the screenshots with the laptop being able to access the HOMEPC's files & folders etc. But now the ip's are different and the laptop can't access the HOMEPC's files.

I really do appreciate the time your spending on this M/Q...thank you.

[M/Q]

I forgot to mention the link in our previous post does not work. The problem as you know is that that notebook is not getting an IP address or default gateway information from the HomePC. That is shown by the 169.254.x.x IP addr.

Have you recently changed anything on the notebook? Added a firewall or security suite software from work? If you encryption turned on, you may want to disable it for now. This is a hard one as you can not change the notebook too much otherwise it will not work correctly when you are attached to the work network.

I will once again try to convince you to get a wireless router as ICS is a very troublesome application and has issues all the time. Also can you try the wireless card in the notebook somewhere else as it might be having a firmware/hardware problem.

[PacE]

Sorry M/Q new link here...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/paceturner/Network/LaptopConnected.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/paceturner/Network/MainPCConnection.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/paceturner/Network/WLANConnectedtoLaptop.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/paceturner/Network/ConnectionCMD.jpg

As for changes to the laptop, there hasn't been any changes at all. I'm not using any encryption for the connection either. The work network is on dialup so I guess it doesn't really matter what i change regarding other internet settings / connections.

I take your point regarding a router, but at the moment finances are a little tight, hence why i'm determined to try and solve this.

Regards,
PacE

[PacE]

Just to let you know I picked up a router for £35 and all is now well. Thanks M/Q for all your help & advice, it's most appreciated.