Vista trouble?

Volfandt · Jul 23, 2008

My daughters Vista PC worked fine on my home DSL network. Been working fine for months. It is setup to use a network printer off of another PC on my home lan but theres no file sharing going on, just internet access and printing to a shared network printer.

This evening, I carried it over to her new house and attempted to connect it up to her cable modem. It will not aquire DHCP nor any network settings from the cable modem which is 2 feet from the PC and this PC is the only PC connnected to it. Her old laptop will work on this modem with NO problems. I've tried the same cable that worked at my house, the patch cable supplied by the cable co (the one the laptop works on) and even tried a cross over cable and when I try to do a network adapter renew it will not aquire the IP from the cable modem. The PC does "see" the cable modem when I plug it up as the red X goes away on the "tray icons" (two pcs) and the activity led on the PC's ethernet connector and the cable modems led light up to show connectivity.
When I go to "run-cmd-ipconfig /release" it tells me that I need a higher authority (or something similar) to release the network adapter and will not do it. It allows me to "renew" it but it will not aquire the IP from the cable modem. I run the troubleshooter wizard and it tells me that it can not aquire the network settings (IP).
What in the world is there in Vista that will not allow me to change networks?

stevem5215 · Jul 23, 2008

Well, Vista won't cause this by itself. Networking works similarly to XP on there. But, what you don't mention is if your setup has a modem that has a built in router which allows DHCP addresses to be passed out. Are you getting a 169.x.x.x address on this laptop on your network ? If so that's the default Microsoft error address that comes up when no network is available. Just the fact that you get a connection icon but no connection indicates to me that your pc sees the network but it's not DHCP enabled. You also don't mention if you are on a Comcast network. It's possible that you need to add a router and you can "clone the mac address" to get it to work with the modem. And if none of that works you can always try calling the manufacturer of the router you'd get. They usually can help you out.

Good luck and remember, it's not a FEL with hydraulics ! lol
Steve

Volfandt · Jul 23, 2008

Thanks Steve,
When I do an "ipconfig" on the Vista PC I get the 169.XXX.XXX.XXX default IP and NO DNS settings.

There is a laptop with good ole XP at her house also and it is setup to aquire it's IP and DNS from the Comcast cable modem and it does get a 192.168.XX.XX addy and it also gets Comcast's DNS addy's. I can do a release and clear out it's network settings then do a renew and it will aquire the setting from the Comcast cable modem and it will surf the internet with no problems. I originally set the laptop up for her a couple weeks ago. This same laptop will work at both houses also.

From these findings I'm very sure that the Comcast cable modem is issueing DHCP.

jdbower · Jul 23, 2008

IIRC Comcast requires a specific hostname before it sends out an IP address. Try setting the hostname to that of the working PC. Alternately getting a router to work between the modem and the rest of the network, it may be a better longterm fix.

dmccarty · Jul 24, 2008

Take the working system's network configuration and compare it to the non connecting system's network configuration.

I would guess you need to add a DNS server name and maybe enable/disable some settings.

Later,
Dan

Egon · Jul 24, 2008

Be of good cheer. As I understand it Vista will replaced with another system this coming January.

Volfandt · Jul 24, 2008

Thanks for the reply's, all were good suggestions, especially Egons

Well boys & girls, we have a resolution.
After I punted last night I told ny future SIL to call comcast in the morning to see if there was anything I was overlooking. According to Comcast the cable modem has to be re-initialized via a small button on the back whenever another PC is plugged into it. Once he reinitialized it and reset the Vista PC they all got happy and their surf'n in the USA.
Now I did reset the cable modem but didn't think to reinitialize it. It is a router but only has a single ethernet port.
What makes this strange is that I have plugged another laptop into this cable modem and it worked also. It was my Dell which just so happened to be XP, same as the other laptop.
So lets see, two separate XP laptops worked fine but a Vista desktop wouldn't without reinitailizing. Just something else that just makes you go ummmm.....

We'll be adding a wireless router w/built in 4 port switch shortly so we'll be seeing what happens next.