workgroup trouble

[the adam]

ok I have a small network at my house and I have 4 computers hooked up to a network through a workgroup. Half of them are running xp home and the other half are running xp pro. When I added a another computer to the workgroup none of them could see the computer and I couldn't see the other computers from that computer. None of the computers are running firewalls (except a hardware firewall through the router). So can a single workgroup have only 4 computers or is the router the issue? Or is there something else I have overlooked? Thx for the help in advance.

[don256us]

A router can have something like 256 computers or more so that isn't it. I would make sure that the new computer is using the proper TCP/IP settings. If your other computers are using 192.168.0.*, the 5th machine should too. If the other computers have a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, the 5th one should too. Also make sure that the gateway is the same on all 5 machines. Finally, make sure that the new machine does not have the same name as another machine and that it is in the same workgroup. For XP machines the default is MSHOME. I think for 9x machines, the default was WORKGROUP.

[the adam]

they have the sequencial ip thing and they are all under the 255.255.255.0 subnet mask and are all under the MSHOME workgroup but this one comp still doesn't want to connect. They also have different names. Is there anything else that could be an issue?

[Know Nuttin]

it's not the router. blame windows for having the master browser issue.

ping each computer to ensure that they can at least send packets to each other, then go from there.

[the adam]

Pinging the problem computerPinging 192.168.1.103 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.103: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=128
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.103: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.103:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3ms, Maximum = 6ms, Average = 4ms
Pinging from the problem computerPinging 192.168.1.106 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.106: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.106: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.106: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.106: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.106:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3ms, Maximum = 8ms, Average = 4ms

[Know Nuttin]

dropping packets may be an indicator of a bad cable. Try a different cable or port on the router.

[the adam]

its wireless