trouble networking my PC's

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Hello!

First of all I am new to this forum and also new to the networking side of things. I am trying to set-up wireless network between two of my desktops and a laptop. Desktops are running WinXP Pro and a laptop WinXP Home edition. This is my hardware:

Belkin wireless/wired router with adsl modem
Two Belkin wireless PCI cards for both desktops (not sure I need the one that's inside the desktop that's hooked up to the router).
Broadcom wireless card for my laptop.

So far I have been succesfull in configuring the router. Both my dektops and a laptop are able to access the internet at the same time. Also security and MAC address filtering is in place. So I believe this side of things is working.

My problem is that I can't see any of the computers when I go to "My network places". I ran both "wireless network setup" and "home or small office network" wizzards on all the computers, but whenever I click on "View workgroup computers" on any of my desktops after about a minute of "thinking" I get this error message:

"Network name" is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

The list of servers for this workgroup is not currently available

I think it's strange that both desktops (WinXP-Pro) display this message, while a laptop (WinXP-Home) at least displays it's shared folders when I click on "View workgroup computers". One of my desktops which has router connected to it has only one account with administrator privileges, while the other has three accounts but I always logon using the account that has administrator privileges so the above message doesn't make any sense to me. I also have Norton Firewall installed on my "central" PC but it has been configured so that other PC's are in the trusted zone.

In short I have all PC's talking to the router, but not communicating among themselves.

Could someone please explain to me what am I doing wrong?
Is it worth doing everything from scratch and if so which side should I start from the networking or internet access and what sort of steps should I follow trying to network my PC's? Do I need to run any of the networking wizzards?

Thanks I advance.

 

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Hi m8,

Had a similar problem when setting up my wireless network,

a couple of restarts on all pcs worked for me, and also checking that workgroup name is the same on all comps.

Also if you cant see your shared folders automatically...then try adding them through the Add a network place bit in the network tasks in My network places.

Oh also check you have file and printer sharing turned on on each computer.

Pie

 

Check the status of the Windows XP Pro firewalls. They may be blocking some of the communications between computers.

I assume that all computers are getting their IP addresses from the DHCP server on the router which should put them on the same subnet. Can each computer ping the other?

My Network Places isn't always completely reliable. Click Start then Run and type \\ip_address_of_nearby_computer of course replacing my italicized verbage with the actual IP address of another computer on your network and see if you can get to the shares. DO NOT use the computer names. Use IP addresses. They are more reliable.

Make sure there is something shared on all the computers. Shared documents should be there by default but you never know. Check and make sure.

I agree with Pie Eater; make sure all computers belong to the same workgroup. I think the default workgroup names for XP Pro and XP Home are different.

Let us know how you're getting on. Good luck.

 

Thank you guys for the input.
I am still struggling to network my 3 PC's together. I have given the same workgroup name, I have disabled windows firewalls on all PC's, file & printer sharing is turned on. To answer tripwire45's questions:
1) yes my router's DHCP server is turned on. I have no idea how to make one PC to ping the other...
2) When I click start/run & input the IP's I only get to the shares for the desktop that is actually connected to the router. For all the other PC's I get "The Network path was not found" error message.

Something "positive" though, when I ran "Wireless network wizzard" and put the flash drive back to my main PC it showed this:

ERROR - Microsoft Windows XP - TRON2 (this computer, Depending on the wireless software running on this computer, the Wireless Network Setup Wizard might not work. For details, see article 871122 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base on Microsoft.com.) -> THIS IS MY MAIN PC.

Microsoft Windows XP - ALGITAACER (Computer) -> THIS IS MY LAPTOP (Seems to be the only one without error)

ERROR - Microsoft Windows XP - PUIKUTIS (Computer, Depending on the wireless software running on this computer, the Wireless Network Setup Wizard might not work. For details, see article 871122 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base on Microsoft.com.) -> THIS IS MY OTHER DESKTOP

I have read said article in the Knowledge Base, but could not find any solutions to my problem, maybe you guys could make some sense out of it.
Both of my Desktops have the same Belkin PCI wireless card installed, which came with it's own wireless network configuration utility, which I am using and that's what's recommended in the article. Anyways my "Wireless Zero Configuration" service is set to auto but it's status is showing as stopped.
Any ideas anyone?
Would be gratefull for any suggestions. Thanks.

 

Hey nerijus74,

I'm not going to try to tackle your wireless issue here, as I'm "wired" (so to speak !!!). However, can I politely ask you to pop up to our New Members Board at the top of the Forum, and drop a quick intro. I only ask because as you know, it's a whole lot easier to help out someone with a problem when you know a little about them, and the Guys here will be more likely to help with your enquiry.

Thanks

 

Not sure what the deal is with the wireless but to answer your question about pinging, here's how.

First you have to know the IP addresses of all of your hosts

Click Start
Click Run
type "cmd" without the quotes in the run box
Click Ok
A command window will open.
Type "ipconfig/all"
You will get back a list of information including the IP address and subnet mask for your host.

Do this for all your computers and write down which computer has which IP address

Now from one computer at the command window, type:

"ping ip_address where "ip_address is actually the IP address of another host.

If you can connect, you will get a series of four reply messages. If now, you will get some sort of error message like "destination host unreachable".

 

Thanks for suggestions.

Here's what ping results turned out to be:

1) From my main desktop which has the router hooked up it could only ping itself, pinging router returned "Destination host unreachable" and so did pinging the laptop.

2) From my laptop I could could ping the router and the laptop, pinging main desktop returned "Request timed out".

For simplicity reasons I didn't ping my third PC, the idea being that if I could get two PC's to talk to each other I could add the third one later.

What do you make out from these results, is my router faulty? or is the TCP/IP protocol faulty?