My little LAN is composed of just two computers (a desktop and a laptop)
attached (by wire) to a wireless capable router and thence to a new
cable modem with VoIP capability.
On Friday last I installed the new cable modem along with some new and
more modern phones. All was uneventful. The new modem just plugged in
place of the old modem and worked off the bat. The VoIP connection
plugged into the house wiring and also worked fine as did the new
phones. The next day the laptop was unplugged from its wire and we went
on a weekend trip where the radio on the laptop was enabled to use the
Wi-Fi in the hotel. Also worked just as expected as it has many times
before. After we returned the laptop was replugged to its wired
connection and the radio turned off. All was well for a few days using
just the internet on both machines. That is, until my wife attempted to
use the LAN by trying to print something from the laptop to one of the
printers connected to the desktop machine.
To make a long story short I suddenly have no LAN despite both machines
working normally on the internet. I related all the preceding for
completeness of "changes" to the configuration although I don't see how
either of those things could cause the problem I see. And I suppose
"suddenly" is a misnomer since we rarely use the LAN except for some
relatively rare printing. The problem could have been there for weeks I
suppose.
I have tried to setup the LAN all over again on both machines to no
avail. The desktop knows and can access the LAN by name and sees that
both machines (by name) are part of the LAN but can't communicate with
the laptop. The laptop is even weirder. It knows the name of the LAN
but complains that it has no access to that name and thus no visibility
to the name of the desktop as part of the LAN. I have disabled the
firewalls on both machines to no avail. I have tried ping tests which
are also strange. The desktop can successfully ping the router by
address and can also ping the laptop and itself by NetBIOS name and by
address. That seems very strange given that it can't communicate with
the laptop normally. The laptop can communicate with the router by
address and with itself by name and by address. It can discover the
address of the desktop when told to ping it by name but the ping itself
is unsuccessful.
All of this, as written, is probably a bit confusing so, to summarize:
the only anomaly of the ping commands is that the laptop's attempts to
ping the desktop are unsuccessful. That probably goes hand-in-hand with
the laptop's failure to see the desktop as part of the LAN structure.
Finally the desktop can ping anything successfully and sees the LAN
structure but can't communicate with the laptop.
Does any of this make any sense? If it weren't for the fact that the
internet works fine I'd be blaming some network hardware.
Chuck Norcutt
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|