Back on the sneaker net...Grrr...

[caddmannq]

I have two Win98se PC's linked through a broadband router.
TCPIP & NETBUEI enabled on both.

I was having some problems with "dropping" on my broadband router, and in an experiment, changed out my Smartlink NIC for a Kingston NIC (both 10/100 auto). Previously, both had matching Smartlinks.

This evidently made network neighborhood unable to "find" the other PCs on the net, though broadband access through the router was fine once I solved the real "dropped ADSL connection" problem, which was overheating of the router. (A "blue ice" pack on the router proved this was the case. Cold router=no dropping :) ) Network neighborhood now always gives the message "Unable to browse the network".

Soo...Now I intend to change back to the Smartlink NIC in hopes of regaining my "neighborhood" (could I possibly squeeze more parenthesees into this post?) But I'm stymied as to why it doesn't work now. At work I have 10 Win98se PCs connected through a Netgear hub and Linksys router, and have several different brands of NICS (Netgear, Smartlink, SMC, Linksys) with no problem whatsoever.

Someone suggested that the TCPIP stack was corrupted, so I un & re-installed TCPIP in both PCs to no effect.

Now I'm grumbling...Grrrrr.....

Any ideas on what went wrong?

[Mntsnow]

Do you have the "workgroup" spelled exactly the same as the rest? IE both in spelling & CaSe.

Is this just a peer to peer network or are you logging in to a domain?

[caddmannq]

Peer to peer with the router as DHCP server. I tried as static too, with no diff.

The names & workgroup names are exactly as before & match exactly.

The router shows the names, IPs & MACs correctly, but the PCs do not "see" each other. One doesn't even see itself in Network Neighborhood.

[caddmannq]

OK Mntsnow, you had it right. ;)

The workgroups were not exactly the same, but they looked the same.

How can this be????

Looking at the Network Neighborhood Properties Identification tabs of both PCs:

On one PC the workgroup was CaddGroup
On the other it was Caddgroup

But the main Network Neighborhood windows on both were reporting both as Caddgroup, when one was not!

Grrrr.... :o

[caddmannq]

It's working great now, but it looks even weirder now!

Looking at the Network Neighborhood Properties Identification tabs of both PCs, the workgroup is now Caddgroup.

But the main Network Neighborhood windows on both are now different,

one reporting Caddgroup ,
the other reporting CADDGROUP !!!

Grrrrr.......FREAKIN' WINDOWS! :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Mntsnow]

Sounds like you need to manually go in and set ONE computer up as the "master browser" and then set all the others to off for that option. The computer that you choose to be the master browser needs to be the computer that is going to be ON all the time and prior to any of the others. I think there is a thread in the tips and tricks somewhere dealing with the "master browser" issues

[caddmannq]

I did that at work but probably won't at home, as it works OK now, & the wife never wants to turn on my PC when she's alone in the office.

She can't hear her soap opera tapes over the Delta fans in mine :rolleyes:

[Mntsnow]

lol :) with only 2 pc's that arent on at the same time most of the time your probably just fine not doing the Master Browser hack Cadd ;)

[caddmannq]

I actually have 4 or 5 more in various stages of assembly.
But I'm thinking "Linux cluster" eventually.

Lots of other things to do around here first ;)