Question : Intermittent ping failure between two specific computers

Hi there,

To describe my problem, I have to give a bit of background:  I have three computers, all connected to the same router.  One computer can ping back and forth successfully with either of the other two computers.  But those two trouble pinging each other.  That's what I'm trying to solve.

The set-up is this: I have a cable-modem plugged into a wired router.  Connected to the wired router I have a computer named Musial running Win98.  Also connected to the router is a wireless access point.  I have another Win98 computer named Gibson "connected" to the wireless access point.  Lastly, I have a laptop, creatively named "laptop" that has a wireless card and a wired NIC, running Win2K.  Sometimes I use the laptop on the wired part of the network, sometimes via the wireless access point.  All three computers share the internet connection with no problems.

The real problem I'm trying to solve is that I cannot get Gibson and Musial to network together to share files and a printer.  Admittedly, I'm no networking guru, but I was thinking that the reason is that if I ping one computer from the other, about half the packets get lost.  I have no idea why.  I can successfully ping Musial and Gibson from the laptop and I can successfully ping the laptop form both Musial and Gibson, regardless of whether the laptop is on the wired part of the network or the wireless part.  

Given that fact, it seems like the issue probably doesn't have anything to do with the wireless/wired mix.  Since the laptop proves I should be able to ping successfully across my network, I was thinking there must be something about how I have Musial or Gibson set up that is causing some kind of incompatibility.  However, I'm at the end of my networking knowledge and have no idea what to do next.  

At some point in the distant past (I *think* before I moved Gibson to a wireless network card) Gibson and Musial were networked together with no problems.  I have NetBEUI, TCP/IP and IPX for the network cards in Gibson and Musial.

I'm hoping someone can help me figure out how to get Musial and Gibson able to see each other again.  I'm not concerned about the laptop being part of the network (it is a work laptop), so long as it can share the internet connection.

Thanks in advance!

-Dave

Answer : Intermittent ping failure between two specific computers

This sounds like a TCP/IP problem possibly now. Do you have the latest drivers for your network cards? Also, can you do an "ipconfig /all" on both affected workstations so that we can see the set up?