Evil Windows XP DHCP Problem

[goob2k]

My brother attends a university an hour away from me, and he's having a problem getting on the network at school. He can't seem to get an IP assigned to him. Other computers using Windows XP are running fine, except his. I had it configured as a static IP while he was at home so I could transfer some files via a crossover cable, but I reset the settings before he left.

Upon running ipconfig, the DHCP server is 255.255.255.255 and the IP Address is 0.0.0.0. Somehow the computer isn't seeing the DHCP server, and vice versa. I've tried just about all I can think of, short of using a new adapter. I even had him run "netsh int ip reset " which should reset the TCP/IP to the original settings. The network LED lights are up and acting normal.

Anyone else have any insights? It's a real pain to fix something over the phone...

 

[stash]

You prolly did this already, but did you do ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew?

Also it was common at my school to have wall ports go bad, so if he has a spare computer (ie friends laptop) that he can plug into his port that would be good to rule that out.

 

[goob2k]

When I did /release, it gave me the usual crap about it already being released. When I did /renew, it gave me crap about the DHCP server being nonexistant.

It also doesn't work in another person's room, so it's probably not the network drop.

 

[bsobel]

Are you sure the school doesn't require him to register his MAC address to get DHCP? That has become more and more common as of late.
Best,
Bill