troubleshoot net w/ crossover cable

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I've been running a network w/ 2 win2000 pc's for a while now. Things
abruptly came to a halt and now both pc's fail to see each other. I was
trying to figure out if it was the cable that went bad or 1 of the NIC cards.
I have noticed that when I open the workgroup icon on pc1, it shows pc1.
However, when I open the workgroup icon on pc2, pc2 is not present. I am then
lead to believe that NIC on pc2 is more then likely the issue. However,
Windows does not report any errors with the card. Is there a diagnostic I can
run on the cards top make sure they are functioning properly?
thanks in advance

Chris_J
 
do a
ping pc1
and
ping pc2

from the 2 systems and see if a response is possible. Replace the computer
names by their IP addresses if this fails.

IP address can be retrieved from the MS-DOS command prompt by:

ipconfig

Note that the appearance of the computer name in Windows Explorer > My
Network Places > Entire Network > Microsoft Windows Network does not
necessary mean that it is alive and/or reachable.

Do let us know if this helps. Thanks!
 
Yes I had tried pinging (127.0.0.1) w/ both machines w/ success and I tried
pinging each machine to the other w/ no success. I would assume that this
could be a problem w/ the cable but does a successful loopback ping
neceesarily mean that the card is functioning properly or does it just mean
the tcp/ip is installed correctly?
I will try pinging the ip addr. since I only used the comp names before.
thanks again for the help
 
127.0.0.1 is the loopback address on a TCP/IP host and it will always work
when ping (assuming TCP/IP stack is properly installed / configured).

You should instead ping the real IP address directly (itself or remote
host), either statically assigned, or let Win 200x do the assignment (called
APIPA and has the form 169.254.y.z) in your cross-cable setup, since no DHCP
Server exists on either machines.

You are welcome. Do let us know if it helps. Thanks!
 
Desmond Lee said:
127.0.0.1 is the loopback address on a TCP/IP host and it will always work
when ping (assuming TCP/IP stack is properly installed / configured).

You should instead ping the real IP address directly (itself or remote
host), either statically assigned, or let Win 200x do the assignment (called
APIPA and has the form 169.254.y.z) in your cross-cable setup, since no DHCP
Server exists on either machines.

You are welcome. Do let us know if it helps. Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
odd, now with ipconfig/all, pc2 is showing automatic configuration is
enabled but its also showing values of 0.0.0.0 and 0.0.0.0 for ip and subnet
mask. Also, when pinging pc2 from pc2 Im receiving an unable to initialize
windows socket interface error msg. Now I ask, how can I determine if this is
an error/corruption w/ the winsock2 service or the card?
 
Chris_J said:
odd, now with ipconfig/all, pc2 is showing automatic configuration is
enabled but its also showing values of 0.0.0.0 and 0.0.0.0 for ip and subnet
mask. Also, when pinging pc2 from pc2 Im receiving an unable to initialize
Click to expand...

When the 2 machines are hooked up using a cross-over cable, the TCP/IP stack
will first attempt to contact a DHCP Server and will show the settings you
indicated initially. Failing to locate a DHCP Server will eventually cause
Windows to auto configure IP via APIPA (Automatic Private IP Adress) where IP
has the form 169.254.y.z. This allows machines in the same IP subnet to
communicate.

windows socket interface error msg. Now I ask, how can I determine if this is
an error/corruption w/ the winsock2 service or the card?
Click to expand...

As above, this behavior is expected. Troubleshooting steps need to be taken
to diagnose the incident further e.g. ping machine_name, ping machine_ip, etc.

Do let us know if this helps. Thanks!
 
these are the results of the ping steps you 1st provided.

-from pc1
ping pc1 name- success
ping pc1 ip- success
ping pc2 name- unknown host

-from pc2
ping pc2 name -failed, unable to initialize windows socket interface, error
code 0
ping pc2 addr - cant complete because i could not obtain an ip addr.
ping pc1 name-unable to initialize windows socket interface, error code 0

so the error clearly lies w/ pc2 but again im not sure if this diaganostic
explains whether the error lies w/in the card or w/ the winsock function
 
on pc1 all ping operations were successful except ping pc2 which returned an
unable to resolve host name msg.

w/ pc2
-ping pc2 name -failed, unable to initialize windows socket interface,
error code 0
-ping pc2 ip- unable to complete because I could not obtaiin an ip w/
ipconfig/all

so the error clearly lies with pc2 but im not sure if the diagnostic shows
me that the error is with the card or something else.

thx again for your patience and help!
 
problem solved. Ran across a program called WinsockXpfix that fixed my
issue. Thx again and sorry for all the inqueries.

Chris_J
 
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