DHCP not working only on 1 out of 4 computers

[slimbim]

Hello everyone.

I have a home network set up as following:

Cable Modem to a router,
router to a switch,
4 computers hooked up to the switch.

the router is set for DHCP enabled, and all computers are set to DHCP and obtain IP address automatically. They used to all work fine, except my Win2000 computer just stopped working couple days ago. I have the network card set up all ok, but I just cannot get an IP address.

rest of my computers, running win98 and linux work fine.

I was just wondering if anyone had any idea on what the problem might be? I tried everything, and just can't fix it. So I'm about to format and reinstall windows 2000 figuring its the operating system....unless.....

Thanks everyone.
Slim.

 

[Jesta]

Wasn't clear if you were obtaining IP from cable modem or router. But, I had a problem where my Motorola Surfboard modem would only recognize and assign IP's to the first 3 MAC addresses it saw. Had to clear the modem and add the 3 I wanted to get it to work. Anything above 3 computers would not work. After switching to ICS I have all the computers working on the same cable modem because it now sees only 1 MAC address. May not apply to you but may provide some insight.

 

[slimbim]

The router assigns the IP's. So to the cable modem, the router is all it sees.

On the LAN status on my comp, it says the network is connected, except no packets are being received, only sent.
If i type ipconfig on command prompt, the ip and subnet mask comes up as 0.0.0.0.

 

[minendo]

what brand router is it?

 

[AKA]

Check the link light on your network card. Its not getting an IP because its most likely disconnected. Your cable, network card or that port on switch might be a problem. Check to see if there is a link light showing.. this shows a physical connection.

 

[Kadarin]

<< Check the link light on your network card. Its not getting an IP because its most likely disconnected. Your cable, network card or that port on switch might be a problem. Check to see if there is a link light showing.. this shows a physical connection. >>



Several possibilities:

Link light on:

Cable is bad. Try swapping with one of the other "known good" ones currently working.
Bad NIC (network interface card) or port on switch.
Could be ethernet negotiation problem. Try setting the connection manually in Windows to 100/full-duplex (or 10/full or 10/half if 100/full does not work). You might be able to set this at the switch end, depending on the switch.

Link light is off:

You're using a crossover cable (designed to connect switch to switch or pc to pc) when you should be using a standard "straight through" type cable. Hold both connectors at eye level with the tab facing away from you. Check the color coding of the wires from left to right; they should be in the same order for a standard cable.
You may also be connecting to the switch's "uplink" port, which places the functionality of the crossover cable and puts it in the circuitry of the port itself.
Bad NIC or bad port.

Good luck!

-j

 

[Netman38]

If any of the computers on your LAN have internet access, then the problem is not with the modem. Try setting the Win200 box up with static ip addresses. Make sure that they are on the same subnet as the router (gateway). Set your DNS ip addresses up manually in TCP/IP properties. The problem is either with DHCP in the router, the NIC, or TCP/IP. If the static trick doesn't work, then ping the loopback address (127.0.0.1) to see if your NIC is ok, and reinstall TCP/IP.

 

[AKA]

Pinging the loopback adress wont tell you if your NIC card is any good. That will only tell you if TCP/IP is working.

You need to check the physical aspect of it first.. make sure there is a link light between that computer and switch to rule out a bad cable, nic or switch port. This is always the first thing to check and usually the easiest when your not getting an ip in a dhcp enviroment (when it use to work fine).

No matter what you do on the computer if there is not a link light showing it wont work.

Do you have a link light on the NIC or switch port?

It may only be a matter or ripping your network stack and reinstalling.

 

[Jonathan93]

I had a similar problem on a Windows 2000 machine. It would not pick up an IP address from the DHCP server, so I assigned it a static IP. It worked until I started playing with DNS. DNS didn't work as well. I knew something was REALLY hosed with the TCP/IP setup then, so I reinstalled Win2k. You may try to do a "System Repair" that may fix your problem. You should be able to do that when you boot off of the Win2k CD (It is an option in there somewhere.... I can't remember exactly where).

Since DHCP works with the others, it is not the Cable/DSL router itself. Check the cable. Try switching ports on the switch (You could have a bad port). And make sure your NIC is installed correctly. If you can assign a static IP address to the router and reach the other computers in the house, that means that this isn't a physical problem, that this is a problem with the TCP/IP stack on your computer.

 

[Tallgeese]

Assuming there's no physical error (no link light, etc.):
Did you install any kind of firewall software on your W2K box in question?

 

[shurato]

I think the the firewall wouldnt come into play if he's not pulling an ip upon bootup. On my win2k pro box, my linksys network card just died...but when i installed the same card into a different box, it worked fine...never could find out why that happened but it started working again after i installed a netgear nic in it. oh yeah and a re-format should be the last option, cuz then u'll never figure out why the problem was occuring