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Weird IP Error

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4 replies

by wood_jared

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I currently have 3 PCs on my network that are not able to recieve packets.

Dell Latitude CPx-H, win2000, Novell Client v4.8
Dell Optiplex GX100, win95, Novell Client v3.3
Dell Optiplex G1, win95, Novell Client v3.3

All cannot recieve a DHCPaddress. I gave them static addresses. Tried Pinging the DHCP server, gateway, DNS all timeout.
Tried pinging the local IP and the loopback, three replys. It appears like they are able to send packets, just not recieve them.

I have tried multiple NICs in each (including a PC card and docking station for the laptop), multiple O/S installs, multiple driver versions, BIOS upgrades... on each machine. Still no difference. All three machines are on different subnets, different geographical locations.

Dell thinks it's a motherboard problem... I have trouble believing that three PCs would die the same death at the same time. Any thoughts? Help!

4 replies

by maxwell edison

Look at this network troubleshooting page:

http://www.bris.ac.uk/is/selfhelp/supportstaff/nwtroubleshooting.html

(REMOVE SPACES from the pasted URL)

An interesting section is the one about the ping “failure” message giving a clue as to where the problem may be. For example, when your ping fails to find the computer, is the ping failure:

No answer from

Or

No reply from

Or

ICMP Host Unreachable from gateway

Or

is unreachable

The best strategy when troubleshooting is to start pinging devices that are near to you and then to try to ping devices that are progressively more remote. If you fail to ping a device then you've isolated the problem.

----------

Also look at:

TCP/IP Concepts and Troubleshooting:
http://www.holland-consulting.net/techtcpip.html

(REMOVE SPACES from the pasted URL.)

In simple IP networking, there are three critically important pieces of information for each computer on the network, and one really important thing.

1) IP Address.
2) Subnet mask
3) Gateway
4) DNS server(s) (This is optional, actually, but most user-stuff will need it)

Screw up ANY of these numbers, things probably won't work. You don't get to guess any of these things. You get to choose some, but you
don't get to guess.

All nodes must have unique IP addresses. All nodes on a subnet must have the same subnet mask. Typically all nodes in a subnet will have the same gateway, and they will in your case. The gateway must be on the same subnet as the node it is the gateway for.

All the nodes physically on the same subnet should have the same network number, something that is determined by combining the IP
address of a node and the subnet mask.

Good luck,

Maxwell

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