Drum roll please...

[triadruid]

So after two years, we got tired of burning things to CD-ROM or emailing them to each other to share files in our household; the Internet connection-sharing worked fine (except when it didn't), but the LAN-fu eluded us. So for Christmas, Santa brought a routing hub. We gleefully hooked it up the day after family left, and....

No Internet for 2 out of 3 computers. No obvious Local Area networking available. We're down $XX dollars and worse off than we were before! Well, Odin's Eyes. So featherynscale downgrades (?) her OS to Windows 2000 to simplify the equation (1 computer running WinXP, 1 computer running Win2000, 1 computer running Mandrake Linux, and sometimes a laptop running Win2000). Set up to be dual-boot so she can get her old data...no. Enter driver hell and massive backups to reformat and reinstall the whole bloody thing. And still no Internet for most of us. kittenpants is able to connect without problem for some reason. Which is good, because we are making extensive use of Google and our friends to solve the problem.

So last night, we decipher that hubs are in fact *stupider* than routers and don't provide IP addresses to connected computers. Apparently it would have to go: Cable Modem---Router or Gateway Computer (mine)---Hub====Other/All Computers. Except this seems ludicrous, since our old router already had a 4-port switch on the back, plenty for all of our computers. So, thinks we, we'll be clever and go back to our old setup, where at least we had Internet, and wait for orcjohn to come over and speak binary at us for a while and explain the error of our ways. Hook everything back up...

No Internet for *anybody* now. The two Windows 2000 computers can see each other on the Local Network, however, which is new and different. So we get internal sharing, but no outside access. Weird. Not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, we set those two computers up for flawless file sharing and print our first page over the network to our printer. Small rejoicing ensues. Several reboots/modem cyclings later, still no Internet... except suddenly, there is! Two minutes into one boot, both Windows computers suddenly have access to the outside world once more. No such luck for the penguins. I go back to tweaking their toes for a while longer, and two minutes into that process (but not at the same time as the others!) I have Internet access as well.

Some time later, we are 87.675% networked. Internet on all three computers, and one of the Windows computers has full file-sharing with the Mandrake machine (both directions); for some reason kittenpants's machine and mine are having a spat and still not speaking directly. And I have no printer access yet, but that's likely a driver/configuration error that can be handled eventually...

So long story short, we're all back online, big as life. Not that any of you noticed. ;)

Comments

[malvito.livejournal.com]

not notice? Not Notice??? Do you know the heartbreak and feelings of isolation upon DAY after DAY of looking at LJ and not seeing entries from the household that would probably have some of the more unique holiday horror stories??? Heavens to Murgatroyd!!!! Fie!!! Fie!!! (It's a shame you're not here to see my head spinning a full 360.)

[teross50.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a "Ping" problem and router configuration problem as well orcjohn will just have to go to the dos prompt and see what is showing up for IP addresses Then reconfigure the router with reservations for the three PCs making oneof them the host computer It will not take long at all and Feathyern will be able to run XP if she wants to
It will be ok soon LOL