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"Networking Woes"

Hi,

My Bro got back from Uni at the weekend and I though I would network his Laptop (running XP) and My PC (running ME). So, armed with a network cable (not a crossover but my bros laptop shouldauto dectect and change the way it send signals), I started the network wizard on his Laptop and finished that fine. Then, as instructed I inserted the XP disk and upgraded ME's networking support to XP's. After this the LAN on XP was active and sending and reciving packets of data, and both PC were shown on the network, fine and dandy. But, on the ME PC only the PC itself was shown on the network, and when the XP Laptop tried to access the ME PC it said it was not avalible.

Anyone know what the problem is? I've tried redoing the whole process but that hasn't worked. If its any help the network adapter on the PC is a built in Realtek RTL8139(A) Fast Ethernet Adapter on a GA-8SIMLH-P Motherboard and the Laptops Adapter is a Broadcom 440x 10/100 Intergrated controler.

Cheers
S.A.

Yep, unless you've got a hub available, your going to need a crossover to get this to work.

It isnt a crossover, so would that be the problem?

Ok, so your not getting any pings at all.....sounds like you've not got the right cable - ie crossover, if your not going through a hub.

Take the cable out and look at both ends, put them side by side and compare the colours. A normal straight through cable should read from left to right, with the clip on the RJ45 connector facing away from you, as follows.

White/Orange
Orange
White/Green
Blue
White/Blue
Green
White/Brown
Brown

If both ends of the cable are the same then you have a straight through cable, your going to need a cross over to sort this out.

By the way, I know you mentioned about the laptop sorting the packets out depending on what cable is inserted - but I've never seen this happen correctly.

If it helps if I change the connect speed form auto to any other speed they do not connect altogther, with the XP LAN saying a network cable is unpluged.

I just rechecked my pings, and I can believe I've done this, the reason why it was working was I used the computers own IPs, D'oh! When I use each others neither respond.

Yep, just as I thought, this is down to ME and XP not on the same wavelength, have had the same problem here at home. I have an XP machine which will talk to an ME computer but try doing it the other way round and no way will it work.

It's due to permissions and passwords, the best way is for you to share a folder on the ME computer and default share permissions should be everyone.

On the XP computer, look across the network and you should see the shared folder, you should be able to copy all that data across onto the XP computer without any problem.

Right click on a folder on the ME computer and select Sharing and give it a name without any spaces, that makes it easier to access.

Jive wrote:
> Ok, ignore that, you've answered your own question with a reboot.
>
> So ME can't see the XP computer on the network, is this correct?

Yeah, when the XP computer tries to access the XP one it comes up with the error message:
\\MEPC is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator (me for gods sake!) of this erver to find out if you haveaccess permissions.

The network path was not found.

Ok, ignore that, you've answered your own question with a reboot.

So ME can't see the XP computer on the network, is this correct?

Hmmm....very strange, suppose it could be to do with the XP firewall but as I've never set it up then I haven't got a clue and I can't see any reason why MS would have the firewall stop pings....

Are you positive that you've typed the IP address of the XP computer in correctly in the DOS box on the ME computer?

I restarted and it is now receiving data fine. But the ME PC still does not show the XP in the workgroup and the XP shows the ME but it is unaccessable. Anyone know why?

P.S. I really appreciate everyones help on this.