Intermittent network failures

Hello, I am having problems networking a laptop running Win98SE. Often
when I boot up and log on, the network is inaccessible, and I can't
access the internet. This happens perhaps 75% of the time I boot. If I
reboot and log on again, it almost always fixes the problem.

My existing home network has one Win95 and one Win98SE machine, using
a router (SMC Barricade, assigning IP etc automatically) connected to
the internet. Each machine logs on using the same username and
password.

The laptop with the problem is a Dell Latitude XPi P133ST, using a D-
Link 660 PCMCIA NIC. Everything looks fine with the NIC in the Control
Panel.

Any ideas on what might be causing this behaviour?

--
Chris Jones

You might have some marginal cabling. I would drop the network
adapter speed to 10 MBits/s Half Duplex to see if it makes any
difference.


"Chris Jones" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) t...
> Hello, I am having problems networking a laptop running Win98SE. Often
> when I boot up and log on, the network is inaccessible, and I can't
> access the internet. This happens perhaps 75% of the time I boot. If I
> reboot and log on again, it almost always fixes the problem.
>
> My existing home network has one Win95 and one Win98SE machine, using
> a router (SMC Barricade, assigning IP etc automatically) connected to
> the internet. Each machine logs on using the same username and
> password.
>
> The laptop with the problem is a Dell Latitude XPi P133ST, using a D-
> Link 660 PCMCIA NIC. Everything looks fine with the NIC in the Control
> Panel.
>
> Any ideas on what might be causing this behaviour?
>
> --
> Chris Jones

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 00:06:05 +1000, "Pegasus \(MVP\)" <(E-Mail Removed)>
<"Pegasus \(MVP\)" <(E-Mail Removed)>> wrote:
> You might have some marginal cabling. I would drop the network
> adapter speed to 10 MBits/s Half Duplex to see if it makes any
> difference.

The adapter only does 10Mb/s, but based on your advice I tried a
different cable, and it's successfully logged on 3 times in a row.
Problem solved - thanks for the advice, Pegasus

--
Chris Jones

Don't count your bytes before they're hatched . . .


"Chris Jones" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) t...
> On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 00:06:05 +1000, "Pegasus \(MVP\)" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> <"Pegasus \(MVP\)" <(E-Mail Removed)>> wrote:
> > You might have some marginal cabling. I would drop the network
> > adapter speed to 10 MBits/s Half Duplex to see if it makes any
> > difference.
>
> The adapter only does 10Mb/s, but based on your advice I tried a
> different cable, and it's successfully logged on 3 times in a row.
> Problem solved - thanks for the advice, Pegasus
>
> --
> Chris Jones

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 01:02:13 +1000, "Pegasus \(MVP\)" <(E-Mail Removed)>
<"Pegasus \(MVP\)" <(E-Mail Removed)>> wrote:
> Don't count your bytes before they're hatched . . .

Well, based on a 75% failure rate before the fix, the probability of
it working 3 times in a row by chance is less than 2%, so it was a
good bet. But it's managed more than 10 successful boots now, so
either it's fixed or I've become incredibly lucky - either way I'm
pleased

--
Chris Jones