Connectivity Issu

SuperPC

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Aug 26, 2007
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Hey!
This is the story- Last week on Thursday when the demo of COD4 was released I was getting really low download speeds. As a result I disabled my LAN network which connects the other computer in the house to the internet, thinking that my dl speed would be higher. I saw I was wrong and re-enabled the connection.

For a couple of days later the internet on that computer was acting funny. Internet based programs like Skype, MSN or ICQ would work, but no pages would load in the web browsers if IE or FF. Today I decided I'll try and figure out the prob. This PC is using Vista (the other is XP Pro) so I pressed diagnose on the LAN connection and it told me I had a problem with the LAN's IP address. I opened up Windows Help where they said that I should make sure the IPv4 is in correctly, if specifically or automatically. Mine apparently had a specific one, so I thought going to automatic would fix the porb. Unfortunately it might have made the situation more difficult because I get a message that the automatic IP address is no good and I didn't wright down the specific one.

Does anyone know what I should do? I don't believe that the specific IP came directly from my ISP because I upgraded and re-formated both PCs several time and never had to manually configure anything.

Help please?
 

brw02005

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Mar 7, 2006
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Well if I can assume your running a router all you do is run ipconfig/all in the command line of the xp machine go one number higher on the ip and configure that manually in vista. If this is happening though there must be something weird with vista or your router because DHCP should assign you one that works.
 

SuperPC

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Aug 26, 2007
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I am not running a router. My main Vista PC connected to the internet view a DSL modem and then a wire connects both PCs via the ethernet. Vista has been doing funny things with the internet like it randomly not working even though it says it's connected. But I don't know if this is a similar situation. I'd also like to add that the LAN network shows me that it's connected to Local only- no internet for some reason.

I've also tried taking the IP address from the main connection on the Vista based PC and implanting that in the LAN network. When I do this on the Vista PC it says that the network is connected but I still can't really connect to the internet.

Suggestions?
 

brw02005

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Well most people use a router to share a connection since your modem typically gives you only 1 IP. But since you claim you were able to use both pc's simultaneously maybe that's not it. It could be possible that your phone company updated the modem firmware to get rid of this functionality or simply vista is acting weird. I think at one time vista was set up with a static ip that worked but since you don't know what that is and the trick a I listed before didn't get you it I don't know how to help you fix this besides buying a router to share the connection as most people do and I would feel bad to suggest if it was just vista acting weird.
Can you get a friend to check the connection with notebook. If it doesn't work "run ipconfig/all in the command line of the xp machine go one number higher on the ip and configure that manually" as suggested before. If this works then start troubleshooting the vista networking. I'm not real familiar with it but a static ip that works with xp should work with vista.
 

SuperPC

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Aug 26, 2007
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I tried calling my ISP yesterday and they told me that they don't deal with home network issues such as mine. Unfortunately I don't have or know anyone with a notebook to test out.

I was thinking that maybe if I download a different ethernet driver things might clear up. Could this even be a driver issue? Would getting a different help?
 

SuperPC

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Update! I tried setting everything up backwards, moved the modem to the XP PC and set up the lan network to the Vista and it worked! But I still want to resolve the previous problem as I want the main connection on the primary PC...I'm positive this is a Vista issue.