Member Avatar for wayne6707

Hi

I have set up a small 2 computer network using windows xp for a friend which was working correctly for a couple of days. However it then suddenly stopped working. It became apparant that windows was reporting the cable as unplugged however it was plugged in as normal (cat5e crossover cable). I immediately acquired a new cable and tried that which failed to work. Since then i have made a ethernet loop back plug by crossing over the tx and rx pairs and found out that one of the computers dosent respond to it at all. I then tested the network card by pinging 127.0.0.1 which passed. I decided to reinstall the network card on this computer and i am now in a state where both computers now say connected after i changed them to use 100Mbps instead of auto detect and i have static ip addresses set on each of them. However when i attempt to ping both of them respond differantly. One says destination host unreachable and the other says request timed out. I have disabled all firewalls on both computers and still i recieve the same response i have even tried using two straight through cables and a hub but i get the same response. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be failing.

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Dani AI

Generated

Brief summary and practical next steps that build on ’s tests and on ’s hub suggestion.

The pattern described (local TCP/IP stack OK but no link-level response to the other laptop) most often points to a physical‑layer problem (failed NIC PHY or magnetics, bad jack, or negotiation mismatch) rather than a corrupt TCP/IP stack. ’s hub/second-adapter approach is useful when one machine can act as a bridge, but it won’t help if a single laptop’s Ethernet port cannot establish a link at all.

Try these checks, in order of effort:

  • Inspect link/activity LEDs on both ends while the cable is connected. If one side never lights while the other does, suspect a hardware fault.

  • Force or revert speed/duplex to match on both adapters (use the adapter properties). Mismatched settings can produce one-way or dropped traffic.

  • Look in Device Manager for warnings, uninstall the NIC driver, reboot, and reinstall the latest vendor driver. Check the adapter’s power-management settings so Windows cannot turn it off.

  • Run a quick set of diagnostics in a command window to confirm addressing and ARP state:

    ipconfig /all
arp -a
netsh int ip reset

    (reboot after the netsh reset)

  • Isolate the NIC from the OS: boot a Linux live USB and test networking. If the port still fails to link under another OS, the adapter hardware is the likely culprit.

  • If hardware failure is suspected, use a USB-to-Ethernet adapter or a PCMCIA/ExpressCard NIC as a cheap workaround or replace/repair the onboard NIC.

If link lights and ARP entries never appear despite correct addressing and drivers, the realistic next step is to bypass or replace the faulty adapter. This yields a quick, low-cost fix for gaming or ad‑hoc LAN play without spending time chasing stack-level settings.

Member Avatar for deepakdayaraman

take a hub, 2 straight cable, 2 ethernet adaptor in the main pc and one ethernet adaptor in the second pc, provide internet connection in one ethernet adaptor of the main pc, and from the second adaptor connect it to the hub, also connect the second pc to the hub with the help of straight cable, now provide the following setting's in the second pc,
ip=
sub=
D.Gateway=
DNS=

switch off the firewall of both the pc's

Then share the internet of the ethernet adaptor having internet connection, I mean the main pc, don't change any settings of the second ethernet adaptor of the main pc the ip to the second ethernet adoptor will be given automatically

this will work i am sure as I have already done this atleast 100 times


Hi

I have set up a small 2 computer network using windows xp for a friend which was working correctly for a couple of days. However it then suddenly stopped working. It became apparant that windows was reporting the cable as unplugged however it was plugged in as normal (cat5e crossover cable). I immediately acquired a new cable and tried that which failed to work. Since then i have made a ethernet loop back plug by crossing over the tx and rx pairs and found out that one of the computers dosent respond to it at all. I then tested the network card by pinging 127.0.0.1 which passed. I decided to reinstall the network card on this computer and i am now in a state where both computers now say connected after i changed them to use 100Mbps instead of auto detect and i have static ip addresses set on each of them. However when i attempt to ping both of them respond differantly. One says destination host unreachable and the other says request timed out. I have disabled all firewalls on both computers and still i recieve the same response i have even tried using two straight through cables and a hub but i get the same response. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be failing.

Member Avatar for wayne6707

i like your answer but it seems i didnt quite put all the detail into the post. First it is too laptops so using additional adaptors is out of the question at the moment and they are only being used for a lan to play games on not for an internet connection.

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