Hello:

I hope someone can help me with this.

I know the basics of a computer and am trying to help my neighbor with their internet connection. They have a cable connection coming into their home. They have a computer on the first floor and one on the second both running Windows XP home edition with SP 2. The problem is they can't connect to the internet. Nothing has changed on either computer. Nothing added nothing removed…according to them….Anyway, when you open a browser it says "Page cannot be displayed." If I try to ping a website I get no replies. If I move the cursor to the little network icon in the lower right corner near the clock, a balloon window pops up and if I clicl on status another window pops up that states that states we are connected at 100mbps and below that it shows that a very small amount of packets are being sent and NONE are being received. If I go to a dos prompt and do an ipconfig they have ip addresses and subnet masks but there is no default gateway. Don't you need a default gateway? With this amount of information I have given you do you have any ideas or clues as to where I can go with this problem? I have tried rebooting the computers. I have tried rebooting the cable modem all with no success. You can contact me at [email protected] or [email protected].

Thanks,

Paul

If it was working and then quit, it could be the cable. Check with the provider. Also check any connections between the computer and the incoming line.

Go to DOS (START>RUN>CMD) and enter IPCONFIG/ALL... study or post your results...

P2E

Paul,
First, replies are posted here. Not direct e-mail.

Second, you mention he has 2 computers. Is he using a router to share the Internet? Did you try connecting the cable modem directly rather then through the router?

Have you tried calling Optium Online tech support? They are pretty good.

Yes, it must be a gateway.
The only time you don't need a gateway is when you have
Communication between computers on the same network
(with the same mask).

But you have to give us some more details about the network.
To have an internet connection shared by two computers, you
Need either a router or one of the two computers to act like a router
(it must have at least two net cards).

Thanks to all of you who responded. ScottGem... sorry about the personal e-mail issue. I didn't mean to break any of the rules of the group.

Unfortunately the person has gone on vacation for 2 weeks starting today so I will not have access to the computers again until sometime after Thursday Aug 25th. If this post has not expired by then, I will answer all of your questions. Once the issue is resolved I will post here what steps I took to resolve the problem(s).

Thanks again to all of you.

N