slighty major problem with networking
airbornflght
Houston, TX Icrontian
Ok so I've had a belkin router for about two years now and ive only been using it to share an internet connection to my computer in my room, one in the living room and my ps2.
So a few days ago at school I was in computers class and decided it would be nice to set up a home network. I get home and proceed to the wizard that microsoft provides to set up a home network, and I do give them credit, it looked rock solid and promissing as far as what I wanted to do (share files, printers).I get done putting all the computers on the same workgroup, give them each a different name, resart, I proceed to click the "show workgroup computers" button type thing and uh-ohhhh..the network is unaccessable. well well well. I do the basic and typical trouble shooting process, STEP 1: panic, STEP 2: try to fix and check everything at once STEP 3: calm down, STEP 4: call some other hip-hop computer friends. lol anyway the most that I could find out is that my router, a belkin, has no built in switch, so in the good spirit of using my parents money and impatience of ordering from newegg, i dont bother to go and get just a switch, i walk past them and pick up a nice, new, and shiny linksys BEFSX41 firewall broadband router thinking "this will make everything work, its $85!"
so I go home, un-hook my old router and proceed to install the new one, after i get over the fact that no printed manual is supplied, cheap bastards 
, I finish setting it up. then go through the promising but compromising network setup wizard and to no avail it does the same thing "damn-it" 
....now, ive come to you for help..am I not doing something right, i have xp pro on one and xp home on the other and im not too woried about networking my PS2,,,lol. I'd appreciate any help I can get on this, one note that may or may not matter, I have norton internet security '04 and systemworks '05 on the xp home machine in my living room and xp pro on the machine in my room, it only has windows firewall.
So a few days ago at school I was in computers class and decided it would be nice to set up a home network. I get home and proceed to the wizard that microsoft provides to set up a home network, and I do give them credit, it looked rock solid and promissing as far as what I wanted to do (share files, printers).I get done putting all the computers on the same workgroup, give them each a different name, resart, I proceed to click the "show workgroup computers" button type thing and uh-ohhhh..the network is unaccessable. well well well. I do the basic and typical trouble shooting process, STEP 1: panic, STEP 2: try to fix and check everything at once STEP 3: calm down, STEP 4: call some other hip-hop computer friends. lol anyway the most that I could find out is that my router, a belkin, has no built in switch, so in the good spirit of using my parents money and impatience of ordering from newegg, i dont bother to go and get just a switch, i walk past them and pick up a nice, new, and shiny linksys BEFSX41 firewall broadband router thinking "this will make everything work, its $85!"
so I go home, un-hook my old router and proceed to install the new one, after i get over the fact that no printed manual is supplied, cheap bastards , I finish setting it up. then go through the promising but compromising network setup wizard and to no avail it does the same thing "damn-it" ....now, ive come to you for help..am I not doing something right, i have xp pro on one and xp home on the other and im not too woried about networking my PS2,,,lol. I'd appreciate any help I can get on this, one note that may or may not matter, I have norton internet security '04 and systemworks '05 on the xp home machine in my living room and xp pro on the machine in my room, it only has windows firewall. 0
Comments
Did you merely enable file sharing, or did you actually share a folder on the network? My most oft-repeated mistake is setting everything up right, then forgetting to actually share a folder on each computer. Make sure your printer is shared, too. You'll also have to "install" the printer on the other computers. I say "install" because you don't need to run the setup program from the printer manufacturer, just use the add/remove printers and make sure you tell the wizard that it's a network printer.
FWIW, I've seen many situations where you had to run the network wizard several times for the settings to take.
You may want to bypass the wizard and try just sharing a folder on each computer, sharing the printer, and double check that each computer is listed as being in the same workgroup.
Also, in your routers management section there should be an area listing all the client computers it sees. Make sure they're all showing up there.
Good Luck!
Your question leads me to believe that you may have set up the Internet wizard to have all computers connect through a single computer. With the router you have you don't want that. Just set each computer to connect straight to the Internet. Can all of your computers access the Internet through the router?
The reason this works is that your router performs a nifty little trick known as Network Address Translation (NAT). You will typically get one IP address from your ISP. The router grabs that one for itself. Then it makes up a local IP address for each of the computers on your network. My router is a different model Linksys than yours, but the setup screens are fairly similar.
Your local computers are by default going to be assigned local IP's of
192.168.1.100
192.168.1.101
etc.
To enter your routers setup screen type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar of your browser and press "Go". Look for a button named "DHCP Client Table" and see if all your computers are listed.
What we want to do first is make sure that all of the computers are being seen by the router properly. Once we know that to be true we can flesh out the details.
sailinstud420: We try not to crossover different threads, even if the problems seem identical. It just makes it too hard to keep track of who's saying what and to whom. I'll try and get over to your thread and pitch in if I can.
Assuming the hardware is sound, I am sure that this can all be sorted out for both of you. Hang in there.
By definition, all routers should be able to do NAT.
If you do not understand networking keep it very simple. DO NOT JACK WITH SETTINGS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND OR YOU MAKE IT MUCH WORSE.
In this order..
1) setup a NEW user and IDENTICAL password on every computer.
Log onto that user now ON EVERY COMPUTER. Name it test with a passord of test for now. Do the password!
Run the wizard to setup home networking and make sure it
1) has everyone in the same workgroup
2) enables file and printer sharing.
After the wizard completes reboot EVERY computer and go share some directory or files on EVERY computer. It disables file sharing by default.
Reboot every computer and go drink a beer. Or wait 15 minutes without touching any computer!
Now go and check for the computers in the workgroup and browse the shares
Tex
This screenshot from the pdf manual for your router is pretty fuzzy, but it ought to give you the idea:
Its a matter of running the wizard and getting file and printer sharing enabled for sure on each box. I have had users on a network get so fubard that a certain user on the network on a computer couldnt see the other computers but a fresh new user could. Thats why I suggested starting fresh with a NEW user and password thats identical for every computer just to troubleshoot.
Tex
Yes. Indeed. I was answering his question about the DHCP Clients Table.
In fact I would venture to guess that there were hundreds of millions of computers worldwide with the same IP address's. Maybe a billion.
And profdlb I wasnt jacking with you earlier in any way! Sorry if it looked that way?
The router is working!
You do not need a router to network your home pc's. You need a tiiny subset of it's capabilities (a switch or hub)
And those are working and present. Or you couldn't hit the internet either. This isnt hard but you must follow basic simple directions EXACTLY.
Go to my post above and simply follow the directions given step by step.
Tex
Do I have to set up a user and password on both computers, i had a password on my computer till i got a virus and had to format install...get pissed t microsoft etc... but my parents are kinda technologically challenged and dont like the idea of passowrd and i would prob never hear the end of it
Real World, you'd really have to experiment with it to see if it worked and was worth doing.
The idea was to burn time mosty. One beer is about 10 to 15 minutes unless you guzzle.
Koolaid works too.
You need identical users and passwords on ALL machines.
To test and troubleshoot make one NEW user and PASSWORD thats IDENTICAL on EVERY computer.
Just to TEST for now. The goal is to eliminate as many variables as possible in as few posts here as possible.
lets get it working and then worry about your technologicaly challenged parents. I understand your probs but i am trying hard to cut through as many layers of probs in one swoop as possible.
Tex
Tex