I have a home network with 4 computers, ie, one running win98, one laptop
w/XP Home, one desktop w/XP Pro, and one w/XP home. Router is a Linksys
BEFSR41. My internet connection is thru a cable modem and ComCast.

My problem is that I cannot get more than two working at the same time, any
two will work and connect to the internet. When i get two working they will
connect reliably. By turning all computers off, resetting the modem and
router, the first two will connect although sometimes I have run ipcfg (on
the 98 machine, release and reset connections, or on the XP machines run the
repair utility. If I try to run the srepair utility on one of the other
machines (after two are connected) I get a message that Windows cannot repair
the problem contact the network administrator, guess who, ME.

Can anyone help.
--
I retired, when can I stop working?

"JimN" <JimN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:BB0699D4-B6DF-4618-92BE-460339C870EA@microsoft.com...
> I have a home network with 4 computers, ie, one running win98, one laptop
> w/XP Home, one desktop w/XP Pro, and one w/XP home. Router is a Linksys
> BEFSR41. My internet connection is thru a cable modem and ComCast.
>
> My problem is that I cannot get more than two working at the same time,
any
> two will work and connect to the internet. When i get two working they
will
> connect reliably. By turning all computers off, resetting the modem and
> router, the first two will connect although sometimes I have run ipcfg (on
> the 98 machine, release and reset connections, or on the XP machines run
the
> repair utility. If I try to run the srepair utility on one of the other
> machines (after two are connected) I get a message that Windows cannot
repair
> the problem contact the network administrator, guess who, ME.
>
> Can anyone help.
> --
> I retired, when can I stop working?

You need to supply further details, e.g. what exactly you're doing
when the error message comes up and what the verbatim error
message is.

With only four machines, there seems little point in using DHCP.
I recommend you put them all on fixed IP addresses. Take the
Default Gateway and DNS addresses from the output of
ipconfig /all.

In article <BB0699D4-B6DF-4618-92BE-460339C870EA@microsoft.com>,
"JimN" <JimN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>I have a home network with 4 computers, ie, one running win98, one laptop
>w/XP Home, one desktop w/XP Pro, and one w/XP home. Router is a Linksys
>BEFSR41. My internet connection is thru a cable modem and ComCast.
>
>My problem is that I cannot get more than two working at the same time, any
>two will work and connect to the internet. When i get two working they will
>connect reliably. By turning all computers off, resetting the modem and
>router, the first two will connect although sometimes I have run ipcfg (on
>the 98 machine, release and reset connections, or on the XP machines run the
>repair utility. If I try to run the srepair utility on one of the other
>machines (after two are connected) I get a message that Windows cannot repair
>the problem contact the network administrator, guess who, ME.
>
>Can anyone help.

It could be that the router's DHCP server only has two addresses to
allocate. Connect to the router's built-in web server and see,
increasing the number if necessary.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Check with Linksys to see if there is a router firmware update for yours. I
seen problems similar to this one that were corrected with a firmware
update.


"Steve Winograd [MVP]" <maven@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:29i0n1tllqnpk3uj0lao1sc172hgoe0nlp@4ax.com...
> In article <BB0699D4-B6DF-4618-92BE-460339C870EA@microsoft.com>,
> "JimN" <JimN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>>I have a home network with 4 computers, ie, one running win98, one laptop
>>w/XP Home, one desktop w/XP Pro, and one w/XP home. Router is a Linksys
>>BEFSR41. My internet connection is thru a cable modem and ComCast.
>>
>>My problem is that I cannot get more than two working at the same time,
>>any
>>two will work and connect to the internet. When i get two working they
>>will
>>connect reliably. By turning all computers off, resetting the modem and
>>router, the first two will connect although sometimes I have run ipcfg (on
>>the 98 machine, release and reset connections, or on the XP machines run
>>the
>>repair utility. If I try to run the srepair utility on one of the other
>>machines (after two are connected) I get a message that Windows cannot
>>repair
>>the problem contact the network administrator, guess who, ME.
>>
>>Can anyone help.
>
> It could be that the router's DHCP server only has two addresses to
> allocate. Connect to the router's built-in web server and see,
> increasing the number if necessary.
> --
> Best Wishes,
> Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)
>
> Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
> for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
> addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.
>
> Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

"Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can@fly.com> wrote in message
news:u4WxWSB5FHA.2040@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>
> "JimN" <JimN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:BB0699D4-B6DF-4618-92BE-460339C870EA@microsoft.com...
> > I have a home network with 4 computers, ie, one running win98, one
laptop
> > w/XP Home, one desktop w/XP Pro, and one w/XP home. Router is a
Linksys
> > BEFSR41. My internet connection is thru a cable modem and ComCast.
> >
> > My problem is that I cannot get more than two working at the same
time,
> any
> > two will work and connect to the internet. When i get two working
they
> will
> > connect reliably. By turning all computers off, resetting the modem
and
> > router, the first two will connect although sometimes I have run
ipcfg (on
> > the 98 machine, release and reset connections, or on the XP machines
run
> the
> > repair utility. If I try to run the srepair utility on one of the
other
> > machines (after two are connected) I get a message that Windows
cannot
> repair
> > the problem contact the network administrator, guess who, ME.
> >
> > Can anyone help.
> > --
> > I retired, when can I stop working?
>
> You need to supply further details, e.g. what exactly you're doing
> when the error message comes up and what the verbatim error
> message is.
>
> With only four machines, there seems little point in using DHCP.
> I recommend you put them all on fixed IP addresses. Take the
> Default Gateway and DNS addresses from the output of
> ipconfig /all.
>

I'm not sure if it is still true, but there is a "minor" trap door you
can
drop through when you turn off DHCP on some routers. Comcast
(at least they did) uses DHCP to hand out the DNS server addresses
as well as the IP address to your router (on the WAN side) so if you
use the current DNS server, it may change (long enough for you to
forget the incantation that got you there ... ). Another issue that
took
me a while to discover with the SMC router that I have was that you
normally point the machines with fixed IP's behind the router at the
router for the DNS -- what I found with the SMC was that unless the
DHCP was enabled (even if you didn't use it), it would not forward
DNS requests to the outside so you get "unknown host". Took a
while to figure that one out (found a clue in one of there firmware
change histories where they mentioned they had "enabled dns forwarding".

mikey