Odd computer problem I have been having ...

[lopxtc]

Okay been racking my brain all night on this one so its time to ask for a general call for help ...


Okay got a new laptop to play with, Thinkpad T21 PIII 800 etc etc ...

Go to plug in the ethernet cable to the onboard NIC and nothing ... Win98 comes back with cannot connect to DHCP server and assigns the NIC a default IP (169.something) ....

So Im thinking maybe its just a bug in 98 ... so I install XP... again same issue ...

Hmm Im wondering, maybe its the on-board NIC I figure. So I try one other ethernet card and one other wireless card, both cards work in other machines but in the laptop they install just fine, but return the cannot connect to DHCP server and get assigned the windows default IP address.

Any suggestions??? Aside from this the laptop is in great working order.

Aaron

[digitard]

Well if you did an XP upgrade its going to keep your network settings.

Your best bet is to go into "ADD/REMOVE" programs and go to Add or remove Windows components and remove the Networking services. Then save and reload them ...

See if that helps...

Dave

[lopxtc]

No it was a clean install ... never do an upgrade

Did a clean system reinstall also and still get the same issues.

Aaron

[pbzmag]

Make sure that you have the latest updates. Try removing the TCP/IP protocol then reboot. After reboot, reinstall the TCP/IP protocol then reboot again. Hopefully this will work.

[lopxtc]

Yeah did that also ... pretty much have tried all forms of troubleshooting that I can think of.

Removing the networking service in full.
Blowing away the tcp/ip protocol
Manaually assigning an ip/netmask that should have work with the network.
Updates out the ... LOL

At this point Im thinking its something within the laptop itself that is bad.

Aaron

Originally posted by pbzmag
Make sure that you have the latest updates. Try removing the TCP/IP protocol then reboot. After reboot, reinstall the TCP/IP protocol then reboot again. Hopefully this will work.

[beam]

EDITED:

I didn't see that you tried other NICs and they didn't work either. hmmmm

What are you plugging this into? A home LAN? If so, and you don't have a router, just a switch or hub, then you need to assign an IP.

[MarkM]

After seeing you tried the ethernet cards and although installing went ok the use was denied...this points to an IRQ conflict...a clean install of XP then should have fixed this..you say it hasn't so then perhaps you are still stuck with the conflicts...so a bios flash sounds to be in order.

[lopxtc]

Beam -- Yeah I am currently using a nice wireless router, which all the other puters can hit for DHCP without a problem. Also I manually set the IP addy and that failed to work also. Even tried just plugging the laptop and one other machine into a spare switch and assigning them IP of 192.168.0.1/.2 respectivly. The laptop was unable to ping the tower and vice versa, but another machine plugged into the switch was able to ping the tower and back again.

MarkM -- Yeah first thing I did before installing XP was flash the bios, however the problem existed in 98 2nd also before I installed XP.

Aaron

[lopxtc]

Also for further reference, the built-in IP filtering in XP is disabled so I know its not hiding in the background causing issues.

The problem existed in all forms shown above when the laptop was running both 98 2nd and XP.

Aaron

[beam]

This may sound stupid, but hey, gotta cover all bases. Have you tried a different port in the router? Could be a bad port. Try one that you know is working.

[lopxtc]

Yeah the ethernet cable was pulled out the back of my tower and plugged into the laptop.

And with the wireless it should have picked up the base station (I was sitting with the laptop six feet from the base station)

Aaron

[speeddemon]

sounds to me like its a hardware problem then. This is a pcmcia card right? Could be that something is wrong there. Try and see if there are any bios updates you can download.

[OfficerGoat]

wow... lota crazyness here... hold your horses before going postal on this poor laptop..

1st thing 1st. Reboot your Router/Basestation. Pull the power for at least 30 sec. The DHCP server could be hung, the other boxes in your house wont care since they already have IPs.. they will just continue to use the old ones if not given a new one. Anyhow.. rebooting will reset this.

If the above does not work... then
2nd Manualy assign an IP to your machine. I don't know how your network is setup so these nubers will vary... is your PC winXP as well? If so pull up the status window for the connection on that machine and click the support tab. This will give you its Ip scheme... you will need to use numbers that make sence to this... I.E. if your computer has the following (VERY Common) setup,

IP 192.168.0.121
Mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway 192.168.0.1

Then you want to set up as folows,
IP 192.168.0.10 .. or any other number that is NOT in use someplace else on the network. The important thing is that the first three sets of numbers stay the same.. I.E. 198.168.0. If these change... that puts you on a dif network and your machines wont talk. The mask and gateway will be EXACTLY the same numbers as in the other machine.

Now that you have this set up.. ok it and do the following. Open up a browser (You wont get on the net... you havent got DNS setup) and go to your router/basestation's IP address.... its the Gateway address that you used in your setup. This should pull up the password page for your router's config. If you get a page good.. if not ...hmmm....

Let us know where you stand at this point and I will give you further instructions depending on what happens

[845]

Thats strange my router crapped out yesterday. Now neither wireless nore the ports work. It was working fine like 4 days ago. Maybe a virus? Or an XP patch?

[lopxtc]

I will say this you have lots of good points in this for the novice, although I have already tried it all

I work on Unix boxes all day long so all the basics have been covered and then some ... thats why I posted here, I had racked my brain of all the basics and then some, and I wanted to see if anyone else has had this problem before.

Like I said ran the laptop into a lone off network switch along with two other puters all running class C private IP's ... two boxes could see each other fine, the laptop acted as if none of the other boxes existed. Running Ethereal and tcpdump on one tower didnt even show packets coming across the network from the laptop ...

Pings from the towers to the broadcast address return only the other tower and nothing from the laptop. However, if I use the wireless PCMCIA card on another laptop it works fine.

The only thing I havent tried yet and will tonight, will be to load Linux onto the laptop to see if the on-board networking works through Linux ... atleast give me an idea if its a hardware issue or an OS issue.

Aaron

Originally posted by OfficerGoat
Then you want to set up as folows,
IP 192.168.0.10 .. or any other number that is NOT in use someplace else on the network. The important thing is that the first three sets of numbers stay the same.. I.E. 198.168.0. If these change... that puts you on a dif network and your machines wont talk. The mask and gateway will be EXACTLY the same numbers as in the other machine.