[still_thinking]

I had to replace the motherboard in my PC at work, no problems there, the machine itself runs sweetly.

The motherboard came with onboard LAN, so I thought "yippee" throw the NIC away that I had previously. (Figure of speech by the way)

Trouble is, it says there is no cable connected. Tried this, and tried that, looked in the BIOS, made sure it was definately enabled and it was, still no luck.

I disabled the onboard LAN, and put the NIC in, and low and behold, the status comes up connected.

Now, herein lies the problem...

I can't see any of the other machines on the network (which is a workgroup called SUITE2) All machines are running XP Pro by the way.

Now it gets curly...

If I type "net view" in Command prompt on my machine, I only get my machine showing, try to ping another machine on the network, no response. If I go to any of the other machines, I type "net view", all machines show up, including mine, but if I try to ping my machine, no response.

I have exactly the same problem in "View Workgroup Computers" in "My Network Places" on my machine only mine shows, and on the other machines all inclucding mine do, but mine is unaccessible.

There is no Firewall running on my machine, all have static IP's from 192.168.1.200 (mine) to 192.168.1.210 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, all are on the same workgroup "Suite2".

Point to take, all was working ok before I had to replace the motherboard.

Any suggestions as to what I can try to solve the problem?

[kall]

Have you tried doing the Create Network Setup Disk thing?

Sometimes it works...

[still_thinking]

Yes I have.

I have also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the File and Printer Sharing, Client for Microsoft Networks, and tried using DHCP assigned addresses, all with the same result.

If I plug another machine into the cable I am using it works fine also.

It didn't really bother me until now, since we got highspeed internet today!

[NiteFenix]

still_thinking there are two standards for NICs these days.

1. 10 Mbits
2. 100 Mbits

Check that both the NICs in your machines are set to either the one or the other, then try again.

Post your results here.

[still_thinking]

Well, I seemed to have solved some of the problem.

I bought a new NIC, installed that, and it works, (kind of!)

I now have a problem, that I can only put down to something to do with the length of the cable.

The cable to my machine is to the switch is about 15 metres. If I hook my machine up to a cable that is shorter, say around 5 metres, it all works abcolutely fine.

I made another cable up today that is about 12 metres long, ran it along the floor (as I wasn't going to get under the floor!) and the same problem, put another machine on that cable, same problem again.

I think I am about to give up lol!

[still_thinking]

I should add, the onboard LAN works fine too, on a short cable. On a long one, (which seems to be over 10 metres) it just says "Cable Unplugged"

[NiteFenix]

Why not just put both pc's in the same room?

[Ironic]

Originally Posted by still_thinking

I should add, the onboard LAN works fine too, on a short cable. On a long one, (which seems to be over 10 metres) it just says "Cable Unplugged"

This is definately your problem. Signals degrade over distance, the therefore you need a bridge to amplify the signal. Most routers have built in bridges these days.

[Darkling]

Originally Posted by Ironic

This is definately your problem. Signals degrade over distance, the therefore you need a bridge to amplify the signal. Most routers have built in bridges these days.

You don't even need a bridge.

Those are designed to "bridge" the gab between two networks only letting through requests for what is on the other side thus preventing traffic on one side from clogging bandwidth on the other.

Kind of like the most basic two port switch only even more basic.

All you need is a repeater.
Simply a signal amplifier.

But like Ironic said, those are built into most network hardware devices now.

[still_thinking]

It is all sorted, it appears to be how I made the cables.

I had the RJ45 Pinout like:
Pin
1. white/orange
2. orange
3. white/green
4. green
5. white/blue
6. blue
7. white/brown
8. brown

I changed it too (EIA/TIA 568B wiring standard):
Pin
1. white/orange
2. orange
3. white/green
4. blue
5. white/blue
6. green
7. white/brown
8. brown


Funnily enough, I bought a cable for home use about to months ago, and it is wired how I had the cables at work originally....go figure!

Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions