Please Help - invisible PC on XP home network

[dave_warner_cr]

I don't think I'm a networking dummy but this has me stumped.

My Wife's PC has suddenly gone invisible on our home network By that I
mean
that everything looks ok from Control Panel->Network
connections->adapter->
properties->tcp/ip->properties looks OK for the network adapter - IP
address,
netmask, gateway, dns are all there and as I configured them. However,
they
don't really seem to be there!

Some symptoms are:
- Control Panel->Network connections->adapter->status->support shows
nothing
for IP, netmask, default gateway
- Control Panel->Network connections->adapter->status->support->repair
pops
up an error window that says "Failed to query TCP/IP settings of the
connection. Cannot proceed"
- ipconfig /all shows nothing but the banner message from ipconfig
- pinging another machine on the local network gives "Destination host
unreachable" but I can ping localhost and loopback address
- other network apps show various error messages indicating the same
symptom

Some other information is:
- "netsh routing ip show" displays the network adapter as "enabled" and
"dedicated" (whatever dedicated means)
- "netsh interface ip set address blah blah blah" makes no difference
- "netsh interface ip reset" makes no difference

I have not tried uninstalling/reinstalling the interface which might
fix
the problem because I'm curious about what is going on and how the ip
subsystem could have gotten into this state.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give as much info as possible.

I am a reformed computer geek who now owns an art gallery in Costa Rica
so I'll send a free tshirt to the first person who emails me the
answer.

For your free tshirt email the answer, or at least enough suggestions
to
get me on the right path, to the posting address or
(e-mail address removed)

Thanks to all

 

[RS]

What you might want to do is examine the hardware aspect. Does she still
have all privaleges of the network? Can she access resources from other
computers or is she completely disconnected? Check the hub or router and
change her port and see if that works. Otherwise, you might be looking at a
fluke in your software settings. It could be something so unobvious that it
would take you weeks to track it down.

What I suggest is attempting to take your residential gateway or central
computer (one routing internet access and/or one sharing the most resources)
and create a network boot disk to ghost the other computers. That should
match all the settings (even the most unobvious setting).

Also, if it didn't occur before I would offer another solution, which would
be to sysrestore her computer to an earlier date, a week before the problem
occurred.

Given the list of your symptoms, it appears as if you are experiencing a
hardware malfunction. If jumping ports on the router doesn't work, try
popping open the tower and reseeding the network card.

If you are recieving data via the netcard, it is a software problem. If you
aren't even recieving a power signal, it would be a connection problem
caused by either your network card or the hub itself.

If you aren't recieving any data, try uninstalling the card and reinstalling
it again.

Those three suggestions may shed some light on your problem.

Good luck.

-RS