strange setup for small peer to peer

I'm having some problems with a small peer to peer lan I set up for a
customer. They're waiting for new office to be ready so are sharing a
friend's space. Here's the setup:

Four pcs. Three use XP Home, one Win 2k. There is also an HP laserjet using
an ethernet connection.

Internet access is via a wireless lan, with each computer having its own
wireless NIC. The wireless (internet) connection uses TCP/IP for the network
protocol, with dynamic addressing and private ip addresses in the
192.168.1.x range. Those wireless nics were working but stopped. Two of them
simply will not pick up an ip address but keep going back to the default
address and thus won't connect to the internet. Three of the computers share
a monitor and keybd via a KVM switch and are only a few (3) feet apart. Is
there a possibility that the proximity of the machines to each other is a
problem, that there is some sort of interference going on. The nics see the
wireless router and have an "excellent" signal strength. Neither D-Link nor
Belkin (brands of nics) tech support could resolve it.I'm using Wireless
Zero to configure the nics, not the proprietary software, on their
recommendation.

Access to a shared folder on the "server" is via a wired lan and a dumb
switch. The wired connection has tcp/ip disabled and uses the old netbeui as
the lan protocol. That seems to work well, except that the printer is
sometimes not accessible. It occurs to me that I never addressed the
question of the protocol on the printer. I'm not sure that I can set the
printer (HP1320n) to use netbeui as its protocol.

I set it up like that, with two separate networks, because I did not want
any possible conflicts between IP addresses. I'm wondering if I needed to do
it that way, or could I have gotten everything to work via a wireless
network. Problem with that is the flakiness of the wireless nics.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Michael

Hi

Putting aside advice concerning the topology of such an arrangement and it
merits.

As is, you can add TCP/IP to the wired network and bind both NetBEUI and
TCP/IP to the file sharing, and it might solve the printing issue.

Putting every thing on Wireless only, would be a mistake. I would not risk
a business LAN to be totally dependent on Wireless, in matter of fact since
the computers are in the same spot, there is No reason to be wireless at
all.

I would collapse the whole thing into a solid one wired network (with
NetBEUI and TCP/IP on so that you do not need to configure every thing from
scratch).

If the Wireless is necessary to get the Internet, Bridge the Network
Wirelessly at one point to get the Internet, and segregate it from the
Friend’s office.

You can get a wired Cable/DSL Router and configure your client's system with
wires while the Router provided DHCP or what ever else is needed.

Get a Wireless consumer Bridge (like the Game Box type Wireless card)
configure it to connect to the Friend is Internet, and plug it to the WAN
port of the Router.

This two pages do not describe your specific situation but they can help
with the principles.

Wireless Bridging - http://www.ezlan.net/bridging

Wireless Segregation - http://www.ezlan.net/shield.html

Jack (MVP-Networking).



"mdb" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:iZaph.18016$Pe7.9358@trnddc04...
> I'm having some problems with a small peer to peer lan I set up for a
> customer. They're waiting for new office to be ready so are sharing a
> friend's space. Here's the setup:
>
> Four pcs. Three use XP Home, one Win 2k. There is also an HP laserjet
> using an ethernet connection.
>
> Internet access is via a wireless lan, with each computer having its own
> wireless NIC. The wireless (internet) connection uses TCP/IP for the
> network protocol, with dynamic addressing and private ip addresses in the
> 192.168.1.x range. Those wireless nics were working but stopped. Two of
> them simply will not pick up an ip address but keep going back to the
> default address and thus won't connect to the internet. Three of the
> computers share a monitor and keybd via a KVM switch and are only a few
> (3) feet apart. Is there a possibility that the proximity of the machines
> to each other is a problem, that there is some sort of interference going
> on. The nics see the wireless router and have an "excellent" signal
> strength. Neither D-Link nor Belkin (brands of nics) tech support could
> resolve it.I'm using Wireless Zero to configure the nics, not the
> proprietary software, on their recommendation.
>
> Access to a shared folder on the "server" is via a wired lan and a dumb
> switch. The wired connection has tcp/ip disabled and uses the old netbeui
> as the lan protocol. That seems to work well, except that the printer is
> sometimes not accessible. It occurs to me that I never addressed the
> question of the protocol on the printer. I'm not sure that I can set the
> printer (HP1320n) to use netbeui as its protocol.
>
> I set it up like that, with two separate networks, because I did not want
> any possible conflicts between IP addresses. I'm wondering if I needed to
> do it that way, or could I have gotten everything to work via a wireless
> network. Problem with that is the flakiness of the wireless nics.
>
> Any suggestions appreciated.
>
> Michael
>
>
>