Howdy. Here’s the problem. Occasionally a Dell win98se laptop can’t find the domain server or dhcp at work. Happens maybe every 7 days. Hub light is lit and the network card link light is lit. The traffic light flashes on boot and flashes when I attempt to renew ip’s etc. Can the network card still be bad? Most of the time there isn’t any problem with getting an ip or logging in. When this user goes home and connects to his cablemodem he NEVER has a problem getting an ip from the isp. I’ve tried moving the laptop to another connection on the network at work when no dhcp no login and it wouldn’t connect. We took the laptop to his house..it connected to the isp…we took it back to work…it immediately worked fine on our network. Next..sameproblem today, so I assigned a static ip/dns/gateway and tried it. No connection from his office on multiple boots. I moved it down the hall to another office and as soon as I connected the network cable his Yahoo chat bounced on and then icq etc. This laptop is haunted. My user is a very impatient lawyer fella and I need some good advice. If it’s a bad nic or maybe loose in its bay wouldn’t he sometimes have the problem we have at work at home? Moving the laptop today to the other office and IMMEDIATELY connecting to the internet with his static ip when not 20 seconds before it didn’t work in his office tells me logically it must be a physical problem. But if so why did my moving it to another location in the office in an earlier attempt not fix the issue? Think hard on this one.
