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Duffanator

Windows 7 Netbook Networking Problem

4 posts in this topic

Hey all, This is a home issue and it's being a pain in the but... I got a Windows 7 Toshiba Netbook for christmas from my lovely wife (yay!) and I joined it to my network at home via a wireless connection. (Not sure what the network card is in it but the wireless router is a Netgear WNR2000) It worked great for the first few days but then all of a sudden I couldn't connect to any of my other computers with the netbook. If I go into the network explorer it only shows my netbook, yet if I go into the network explorer on any of my other computers (Windows 7 desktop, Windows Vista Desktop, 2 Windows XP Netbooks and a Windows XP Desktop) I can see everything INCLUDING my Windows 7 netbook that won't let me see any other computers.... Makes no sense to me. I have trolled the internet and tried adjusting all of the Windows 7 networking options to no avail. Today I was playing with it and found something interesting but makes absolutely no sense to me. If I open a command window and ping one of my other computers by name it says it can't find it, however if I ping it by IP address (they are static IP's) it finds it fine and then..... it magicly appears in the Network explorer! I can also then ping it by name. WTF? Has anyone ever run into this problem before? I have another windows 7 computer and I don't have this problem. I don't know if it's because it's on the wireless network or what. Any help would be appreciated, I'm a networking retard! Thanks!

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I'm a networking newb also but I have seen this behavior on both Vista and Win 7 machines. IT has something to do with the ARP Table I think and the way the "offending" machine remembers or knows the network. The "forced" ping by IP Address does a refresh of that under the hood table. At least that is the explanations I've been given by more knowledgeable networking friends.

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Thanks for the reply, Bob. That pointed me in the right direction. I checked and deleted the ARP cache and tried again but it didn't work. I then searched for ARP related networking problems and eventually found this: http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing...ut-problem.html This was very helpful and I ended up tracing the problem back to my router, interestingly enough. Apparently the router also has an ARP table that can be corrupted when something like a netbook or laptop goes into sleep mode and it's trying to communicate with it. I rebooted my router, cleared the cache on my netbook and then it started working perfectly. Thanks for the help, Bob. I wouldn't have found that on my own!

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Glad to help Duff - You really get the prize for keeping up the search.

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