Networking 101

The old PC should always be able to ping itself if connected to a network.

I use Colasoft MAC Scanner Free to list all the devices on a network. It has an initial start-up nag but has solved a number of network issues for me.

It is usual to have either Ethernet connected or wifi turned on, but not both at the same time connected to the same network.

--
Mike Perkins 
Video Solutions Ltd 
www.videosolutions.ltd.uk

So you presumably have something like this set up:

Machine 1: ip 10.0.0.10 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 other settings don't matter

Machine 2: ip 10.0.0.20 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 other settings don't matter

Check that Windows firewall and anti-virus software is completely disabled on both machines.

Disable WiFi on both machines.

Link them with an ethernet cable.

This should "just work".

John

Well what did you expect? Go back 30 years...

"Keyboard not found. Press F1 to continue." :)

Did you use a crossover cable to connect the two PC Ethernet ports? Don't think it will work if you don't.

802.11n WiFi should perform nearly as well on transfer speed in practice between two PCs on the LAN as the 100 Mbps adapter that comes stock on many older mobos. If it's dog slow then the problem is somewhere else

If both PCs have WiFi you don't even need a router you can just connect them peer-to-peer over the wireless.

years, they haven't been able to make networking easier to set up. I coul d have sworn I was able to plug a cable between two PCs in 2002 and they co uld see each other's drives with very little trouble. I've been setting up a couple of new machines and need to copy large amounts of data from the o ld machine so rather than going through the slow wifi link, I wanted to use the Ethernet port. Not at all easy these days.

t having the path through the wifi available means it ignores the wired pat h. So I had to cut the wifi for one of the PCs. Then it would work, kinda sorta. I don't recall all the issues I had, but it worked for a bit, then when I reconnected the wifi to see if it would continue to work it didn't and wouldn't come back no matter what I did.

g to get a copy of the entire drive on the other new PC and can't get a wir ed connection to work. The drill seems to be to set IP addresses for both machines and then they can talk. On the new PC I can ping and get a reply from itself as well as the old PC. But on the old PC it will ping itself s uccessfully, but it times out when trying to ping the new PC.

The wifi is off on the old machine during this exercise and it is on on the new machine.

or this. Tomorrow I'll plug one in and let it rip. It would have been so nice to just copy it all directly to the other PC though.

hat is wrong rather than just saying, "the other machine didn't respond"... Yeah, I already figured that part out. I was kinda hoping for some insig ht into the problem.

Since Gigabit ethernet most ports automatically detect and swap the pairs so you don't need crossover cables

years, they haven't been able to make networking easier to set up. I coul d have sworn I was able to plug a cable between two PCs in 2002 and they co uld see each other's drives with very little trouble. I've been setting up a couple of new machines and need to copy large amounts of data from the o ld machine so rather than going through the slow wifi link, I wanted to use the Ethernet port. Not at all easy these days.

t having the path through the wifi available means it ignores the wired pat h. So I had to cut the wifi for one of the PCs. Then it would work, kinda sorta. I don't recall all the issues I had, but it worked for a bit, then when I reconnected the wifi to see if it would continue to work it didn't and wouldn't come back no matter what I did.

g to get a copy of the entire drive on the other new PC and can't get a wir ed connection to work. The drill seems to be to set IP addresses for both machines and then they can talk. On the new PC I can ping and get a reply from itself as well as the old PC. But on the old PC it will ping itself s uccessfully, but it times out when trying to ping the new PC.

The wifi is off on the old machine during this exercise and it is on on the new machine.

or this. Tomorrow I'll plug one in and let it rip. It would have been so nice to just copy it all directly to the other PC though.

hat is wrong rather than just saying, "the other machine didn't respond"... Yeah, I already figured that part out. I was kinda hoping for some insig ht into the problem.

Thanks for the link, but if it were the cable, neither machine could see th e other, right? One machine has no trouble seeing the other, but not the o ther direction.

Rick C.

Probably then want to check that a) the laptop is recent/high end enough actually have Gigabit ethernet and whether the most recent manufacturer drivers for the interface are actually installed on both machines if so (does it swap the pairs in 100 MBps or 10 fallback too? dunno.) Low spec machines like e.g. Acer Aspire don't have gigabit adapters

Using the manufacturer specific drivers for peripherals instead of the Windows default can solve a wide array of problems

atter

atter

d

Thanks for the help. None of this was the issue. The machine that could n ot *be seen* didn't have sharing turned on for that network. That setting is separate for every network and not common across the machine. On that m achine, even when I got a suggestion to turn that on just now, it took me t o a page where the only thing I could do is copy the IP address or somethin g like that. You had to know to click on another setup link on the side fo r "advanced setup".

Rick C.

20 years, they haven't been able to make networking easier to set up. I co uld have sworn I was able to plug a cable between two PCs in 2002 and they could see each other's drives with very little trouble. I've been setting up a couple of new machines and need to copy large amounts of data from the old machine so rather than going through the slow wifi link, I wanted to u se the Ethernet port. Not at all easy these days.

hat having the path through the wifi available means it ignores the wired p ath. So I had to cut the wifi for one of the PCs. Then it would work, kin da sorta. I don't recall all the issues I had, but it worked for a bit, th en when I reconnected the wifi to see if it would continue to work it didn' t and wouldn't come back no matter what I did.

ing to get a copy of the entire drive on the other new PC and can't get a w ired connection to work. The drill seems to be to set IP addresses for bot h machines and then they can talk. On the new PC I can ping and get a repl y from itself as well as the old PC. But on the old PC it will ping itself successfully, but it times out when trying to ping the new PC.

The wifi is off on the old machine during this exercise and it is on on t he new machine.

for this. Tomorrow I'll plug one in and let it rip. It would have been s o nice to just copy it all directly to the other PC though.

what is wrong rather than just saying, "the other machine didn't respond". .. Yeah, I already figured that part out. I was kinda hoping for some ins ight into the problem.

rs

Nothing that esoteric. It was just my failure to understand all the settin gs involved and a lack of sufficient attention to this detail in the variou s web pages to make it clear there are separate settings for each network.

Rick C.

LLC sez that Gigabit adapters auto-swap the pairs; I didn't know that I haven't used a wired connection for anything but a printer in ages.

Probably best to check the Device Manager settings and use netsh from the command line to ensure what Ethernet hardware class and link speeds the machines are actually capable of and that if available the manufacturer/motherboard specific drivers are installed for both machines as opposed to the stock Windows drivers, in my experience this fixes a lot of issues.

It looks like there are several auto-negotiation standards referenced here: sounds like one machine being Gigabit and the other not could end up with some kind of half-duplex operation that would explain the symptoms

Not really amazing. 20 years ago, we had the computer networking equivalent features of two tin cans and a string. It would do one or two things badly and rather slowly. Today, we have mountains of supported protocols, 10,000 times the speed, and more applications that we could have imagined 20 years ago. What I consider amazing is that the underlying 802.3 protocol has survived all the feature bloat without much change.

I deal with computah notworks on a daily basis. When they work as intended, everything is easy. When they go awry, troubleshooting becomes rather difficult, sometimes requiring sniffing the traffic (Wireshark) or sifting through cryptic log files. Anyway, I'm sympathetic.

Quite easy if you have Windoze 10. It has a few networking bugs that MS seems to be ignoring.

Re-reading your question, perhaps it would be useful if you abandon the complaint department rant mode of not asking a question (unless you prefer to rant onward), and kindly disclose:

1. What problem are you trying to solve? One or two lines is sufficient.
2. What hardware and software are you working with? That means names and numbers, the more numbers the better. Extra credit for accurate version numbers.
3. What have you done so far and what happened? Any changes to the stock configuration? Any tinkering? Did you run any diagnostics? Any interesting results?

Given that information, it might be possible to answer your question.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

p.

No need. The problem was in the advanced network settings being separate f or each network. I thought I had set it to allow the connection, but not i n the right network. That still doesn't explain why the other computer cou ld see this one, but this one couldn't see the other. I would think if it was connected, it would be connected, but I guess not.

Rick C.

If the machine just happen to be running Windoze 10, this might explain the connection weirdness.

The usual solution is to run "network reset" and reboot. Start -> Settings -> Network and Internet -> Status -> Network Reset More:

There is also a problem with what MS calls "private networking". If "Find devices and content" (formerly known as network discovery) or the network is set to "private", the machine will not be seen.

There's one more, but I have to deal with this mornings distractions.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Are you sure that setting the network to "private" means the machines on th e network can't see each other? I have always set the local network to pri vate because it says you should not make files sharable over a public netwo rk, which makes sense. If it is public you want to keep strangers out, pri vate means you can unlock the doors.

The two machines I have a Dell Precision laptops, M6500 and M6800 on a WRT5

4GL router. Both machines see the other machine in Windows explorer and th rough a command line ping. But in Windows Explorer no files or folders are visible, just the top level machine.

Oddly enough the M6500 will connect to the M6800 through remote connection so the M6800 desktop can be seen, but not the other direction. Remote acce ss is enabled on both machines.

None of the trouble shooting tools have worked so far.

Rick C.

Please note the title of: which is: You can make your Windows 10 PC visible or hidden on a local network, and in this guide, we'll show you how. Hint: It's a bug.

There is also a sharing setting problem under "Advanced Sharing Settings" at the bottom of the list: This is the bug that I couldn't recall in my previous rant. It doesn't matter whether you prefer password protected sharing or not. If you can't see other machines that are sharing their files, try the following: 1. Disable fast startup until after things are working: 2. Change the setting for password protected sharing from wherever it's currently set to the other setting. Yes, I don't care how it's currently set. 3. Reboot. 4. Change the setting for password protected sharing back to what it was before you changed it in step 2. 5. Reboot. 6. You should now see the missing shares. 7. If a few seconds are so important that you need fast startup, enable it again. If not, leave it off as I've seen it cause a few problems where setting changes do not stay changed. I discovered this somewhat by accident and have used it successfully to fix Win 10 on about 15 or so machines so far.

If this stuff worked as one might expect, I would be out of business.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

On Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 2:53:32 AM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrot e:

ears, they haven't been able to make networking easier to set up. I could have sworn I was able to plug a cable between two PCs in 2002 and they coul d see each other's drives with very little trouble. I've been setting up a couple of new machines and need to copy large amounts of data from the old machine so rather than going through the slow wifi link, I wanted to use t he Ethernet port. Not at all easy these days.

having the path through the wifi available means it ignores the wired path. So I had to cut the wifi for one of the PCs. Then it would work, kinda s orta. I don't recall all the issues I had, but it worked for a bit, then w hen I reconnected the wifi to see if it would continue to work it didn't an d wouldn't come back no matter what I did.

to get a copy of the entire drive on the other new PC and can't get a wired connection to work. The drill seems to be to set IP addresses for both ma chines and then they can talk. On the new PC I can ping and get a reply fr om itself as well as the old PC. But on the old PC it will ping itself suc cessfully, but it times out when trying to ping the new PC.

e wifi is off on the old machine during this exercise and it is on on the n ew machine.

this. Tomorrow I'll plug one in and let it rip. It would have been so ni ce to just copy it all directly to the other PC though.

t is wrong rather than just saying, "the other machine didn't respond"... Yeah, I already figured that part out. I was kinda hoping for some insight into the problem.

I got it working. Seems that whatever else is going on, I had to specifica lly indicate I wanted to share the hard drive. By opening the hard drive p roperties and the sharing tab then advanced sharing I eventually found a ch eck box to enable sharing for the whole drive. I did that on both machines and I'm in.

The M6800 is sharing the user folder separately and I'd like to turn that o ff, so I need to do a bit more digging.

Rick C.