Uh oh. Lost Network; new, unknown IP address?

[cipher00]

I'm going to try to address all the necessary info, but I think I've got a bad problem.

Starters: Win2k everywhere. Cable modem to SMC 7004AWBR wireless barricade, SMC 2632W wireless cards in laptops, 3Com in desktop hardwired to the router. Everything was working fine until 9 this morning. Deep in an application I was working on, I vaguely recall ZoneAlarm Pro asking if it was ok to allow a new network, detected just after a reboot. Sure (mistake?), my shared printer has been acting up, but I thought I solved that. (I was printing at the time.)

I lost all connections to the 'net. Finally rebooted my router and reset some basics, and I've got wired access back. The wireless is gone, though, and I can't seem to get it back.

Here's the odd part: the automatically configured IP addresses for the laptops are not part of the standard LAN that I recall and that the SMC router is looking for (192.168.xxx.xxx) but are now 169.254.xxx.xxx. I could try static, and maybe that's next, but this seems odd to me.

IPCONFIG /release won't work and /renew just tells me that it can't find a DHCP server.

Ideas? Thanks for reading.

 

[FUBAR]

Can't help much, but what I do know is that the 169.2554.xxx.xxx addresses are the windows default addresses for when your machine can't find a DHCP server. Rather than have no address, the OS gives a random address in that network.

 

[cipher00]

FUBAR, thanks; that bit o' knowledge, which I didn't know, helped. Basically, your note told me that the old SMC wireless cards were not getting anywhere. Back to basics: I uninstalled & reinstalled the wireless cards.....and that worked.

Now for WEP, mac address control....I'll be busy for a while.

Thanks for your post. Even though you thought you weren't able to help much, it pointed out the right path.

 

[PlatinumGold]

just to clarify, it's not random, MS os's always use the 169.x.x.x addresses when they can't find a dhcp server.

 

[cipher00]

PlatinumGold: thanks. Is it always 169.x.x.x, and not 169.254.x.x? What I mean is, if I see 169.x etc. can I be sure there's a problem, or is it more specific?

-cipher00


(learning more every day....