Re: Strange PC networking problem

David Fritzinger wrote:
In article <XvOdnfmF7aGWDpjbnZ2dnUVZ_veinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
"PC Guy" <pcguy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"David Fritzinger" <dfritzin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dfritzin-933B35.10583024032007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <9gg9035qe3mc2d9gig2fueav0mkra758ip@xxxxxxx>,
Mayor of R'lyeh <mayor.of.rlyeh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 23 Mar 2007 23:04:52 -0700, "Dave Fritzinger"
<dfritzin@xxxxxxxxxxx> chose to bless us with the following wisdom:

On Mar 23, 4:34 pm, Steve de Mena <ste...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dave Fritzinger wrote:
On Mar 20, 10:57 am, "PC Guy" <p...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Tim Murray" <no-s...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0001HW.C224C9C50001C5DDF0488648@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I think a key item is this:
I could use her computer to log in to the router,
and make configuration changes.
I would not bet a lung on it, but I think in order to do that, the
computer
must have had an IP issued to it. Thus, we can rule out things like
running
over your max IP limit. But the question is whether you can make
config
changes with a self-assigned IP of the form 127.x.x.x.
The result of the ipconfig /all is important.
I see this from time to time but usually on wireless. The times I've
seen
it
the fix was to (a) completely delete the connection from the Networks
control
panel and reboot, and if that was not sufficient, then (b) remove the
network
hardware adapters and reboot. The drivers are already there, so
Windows
should have no problem reloading them when it boots up again.
It's no wonder you Mac advocates despise Windows. It's obvious you are
completely clueless about it. There is nothing wrong with the cable,
port,
PC interface, or IP address. We know this because he said:
"Finally, I could use her computer to log in to the router, and make
configuration changes."
If there were a problem with any of these he would not be able to log
into
the router. Thus any suggestions to removenetworkhardware adapters,
drivers, replace the cable are completely useless. Even statically
assigning
IP addresses is very unlikely to solve the problem. The fact that he
can
connect to the router indicates that he is having issues getting off of
the
localnetwork. The likely causes of the problem are incorrect DNS
entries,
missing default router, or a bad subnet mask. Also "self-assigned" IP
addresses do not fall within the 127.0.0.0/8network. Thatnetworkis
reserved for loopback addresses. What you are thining of are private IP
addresses (PIPs, otherwise known as RFC-1918 addresses) which fallen
within
one of the following networks:
10.0.0.0/8
127.16.0.0/12
192.168.0.0/16
Dave, before performing any of the suggestions please post the output
of the
commands I, and a few others, have given you. The two most useful ones
are
the nslookup and ipconfig commands.
OK, I finally got a chance to look at my wife's computer this
afternoon (She usually packs it away to take to work before I get
home). The problem was really simple, and something I suspected a
couple of days ago. The router address that the computer was looking
for was wrong (192.168.0.1 instead of 192.168.1.1, which is how the
router was set up). This brings up a rather naive question about
Windows. Can the networking be set up to automatically find the router
address?
No, absolutely not. It has to get it from DHCP,
or be entered in manually.
Yet, on the nework preference pane on my laptop, there are no entries
in the DNS server box, until I plug my laptop in, either at work or at
home, and it finds the router. Also, if what you say is the case, how
would you conncect to networks when you are traveling, or when you go
to Starbucks (or whatever)?
Those places use DHCP. Was your Windows networking setup to use DHCP
or a fixed address?
It was setup to use DHCP. However, and this was the problem, it had been
set up to only look for a router with the address of 192.168.0.1. My
router has the address of 192.168.1.1, so the computer didn't see it.
[snip]
This can't be true. If you configure Windows to use DHCP you have no option to specify a different gaetway. The default gateway is always assigned along with the IP address and netmask when DHCP is used. If the default gateway was set to 192.168.0.1 then you had it configured wrong on the DHCP server (most likely the router in this case). In the end this wasn't a Windows issue but merely a user error...as I suspect is the case with many of the Mac advocates issues in this forum. Not to single you out Dave but had you not written "BTW, this is a request for help, not a "Macs are better" post." we would have had a lot of Mac advocates whining about how bad Windows is even though it was user error.

While I am typing on my MBP, I have my wife's Lenovo notebook next to me, and I have the Network Connections control panel open (Windows XP Home). In the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)Properties dialog box, on the general tab, there are several options. First is "Obtain IP address automatically". This is a radio button, and the other choice is "Use the following IP address", with several text fields used to enter IP address, Subnet mask, and Default gateway. The next choice is between "Obtain DNS server address automatically" or "Use the following DNS server addresses:", with fields for preferred DNS server and alternate DNS server. Originally, the "Use following DNS server addresses" was checked, and the Preferred address was 192.168.0.1, with nothing in the alternate DNS server. Since the IP address of my router was, by default, 192,168,1,1, the computer didn't see the router.

What I am saying is that, if I am reading your post correctly, you are wrong. I am able to configure the computer to automatically obtain the address of the DNS server, and it is thusly configured now. And, it is possible to specify the ip address of the DNS server (that is, to specify the i.p. address that the computer will look for), which is how it had been set up previously. And, yes, it was user error, and I never claimed otherwise.

Dave,

You know you both are talking about two different things. A DNS server and the default gateway (router) and two seperate functions. Maybe they are on the same box, but that does not mean anything.

In my environment I have two DNS servers 192.168.1.21 and 192.168.1.102. My router (default gateway) is 192.168.1.1.

DNS Server = translates names into IP addresses. Takes "www.apple.com" and returns 17.112.152.32

The router is the address your traffic goes to if it has to leave your own subnet. To get to 17.112.152.32 it would go to your router and on from there.

You can always over-ride (manually change) any of the things the DHCP server gives you. The caveat with doing that is if you take that PC to another location and forget you had done that something might not work.

Steve
.

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