Lost MY LAN

[MarvO1]

Small home office environment, Telecommuter, 5 PC's networked for file and print sharing. 2 ea. Win 2ooo Pro, 2 ea. Win98 and 1 Win95. All have been working great until I converted from an ISDN line to a cable modem for my ISP. I now have Internet access from all PC's,(only one before) but nothing else. When they installed the cable modem, they removed my specified IP addresses and set all machines except my main one to OBTAIN IP ADDRESS AUTOMATICALLY. Now I can't even ping my other boxes. If I put the IP addresses back in, I can't get the Internet connections, and still can't ping each other. I'm missing something simple here, or "can I not have my cake and eat it too"

MarvO said it

 

[stevends]

on the pc that is connected with the cable modem you can install NAT with Internet Connection Sharing, the easiest way to do that is on a windows 2000 station, go to the properties of the NIC card and select the checkbox, enable Internet Connection Sharing for this connection, you just need to install two NIC cards in your pc, one to go to your cable modem and one that is connected to your internal LAN

 

[wolluf]

How is network set up now? (cable modem connects to one machine via ethernet/usb? - network uses hub/switch/router?).

 

[alwayshungry]

One option you might look into is getting a router with switch ports (Linksys - MFG part # BEFSR41) and placing it between cable modem and PC's. I have mine working like this. I actually purchased a wireless router w/switch (Linksys MFG part # WRT54G).

 

[MarvO1]

Thanks for the replies. Gives me some things to look at.
My network is just 1 hub. Cable modem directly to hub.
Only 1 NIC per PC. Prior to the cable modem installation, I had a gateway set to my ISDN box. That has been removed.

I will not get this looked at for several days, but will post again with results and to award the STAR after I return.

Thanks to all

MarvO said it

 

[wolluf]

Marv01 - from your description it sounds like your ISP is supplying an external IP address for each machine. Is this true? (the more usual option is to have one external IP address, which 'belongs' to router or machine running ICS & an internal LAN which router/ICS machine plays DHCP server to. Extra IP addresses cost extra).

If external IP addresses is correct, you may need to install another network protocol (netbeui) on all machines to enable file and printer sharing.

Alternatively, options suggested by stevends & alwayshungry should work (but only need one IP address). Router is good idea as it provides protection (NAT) and improves network throughput compared to hub.