Small network problem with Windows 98/ME

[dstidolph]

I'm helping my Daughters Dentist with his computer setup at his office. He has 3 desktop computers and one laptop connected to a 10/100BT switch. Internet connectivity is through a LinkSys Cable router.

One computer uses Windows 98, another and the laptop use 98se and one uses ME. The ME computer is sort of the server with the critical application running on it. Most have 64 or 128 MB of memory with plenty of available disk space. Only one computer has any listed hardware conflict - shared IRQ with ACPI which says it is turned off in the BIOS (don't need it on a desktop). The ME machine has System Restore turned off.

All the computers have Microsoft Client for Windows, the Ethernet card, TCP and File/Printer sharing installed in the network. I used to have NetBeui installed, but removed it on advice.

All the computers see the Internet and one another. The problem is that sometimes they seem to completely pause for the user. All UI activity except mouse movement is shut down. You can move the mouse around, but no clicking or keyboard activity results in anything. Stranger still is that the computer, though seemingly locked up, is completely available to other computers on the network. You can access files, print documents, etc. After a period of time (30 - 90 seconds) the computer comes back to life and all the keypresses, mouse clicks, etc, are performed. At least one of the computers (the one with the IRQ conflict) seems to take forever in scanning Network Neighborhood, but it connects with a previously mapped drive to the ME machine immediately.

I have made sure that DHCP and WINS is turned off. It gets the IP address dynamically and there are no set Gateways or DNS servers.

Suggestions on what to look for?

Thanks,

David Stidolph
Austin, TX

 

[dstidolph]

Ok, talked with someone and gotten another problem to add to this (may relate).

The TCP/IP that is listed in the Network properites is NOT bound to the Ethernet card. It just says TCP. How do I get it to bind to the particular network card? The network card is listed...

 

[bongod]

hmm, thats a wierd problem. so the freezing happens on all 4 of the computers?

adding a tcp service is easy - but it shoudn't matter that its not explicity bound to your network card. i don't think that is the source of your problems.

Try re-enabling netbeui on all the computers. that'd be a good experiement.

 

[dstidolph]

The name problem (just says TCP instead of TCP->Card) is just that I no longer have multiple devices (removed dial-up adapter and such) so it doesn't bother changing the TCP name.

I'm going to check winipcfg for the submask settings.

I think there were some "ghost" images of previous computers in one computers network neighborhood. I remember there is an NT utility to clear the network cache. Anybody remember it and if there might be a similar 98 utility or procedure?

Thanks,

David.

 

[bongod]

nbtstat -R