N00b Windows Mac Neworking Question

[nikhilr51]

Hi,
I have been tying to connect an old windows to use as a home file server. It worked when it was wired to my router but swapping to wireless has resulted in some prblems. My computers are connected like this:

Belkin N1 Wireless Router
Old Windows Xp Pro w/usb wireless (file server)
Powerbook G4 10.4 (computer trying to connect to file server through router)
Windows Xp Home wired to router (other computer)

I go to connect to server and type in smb://169.254.79.244
After about 3 minutes it says " The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in smb://169.254.79.244 could not be read or written".

Any ideas how to fix this? I've been trying for hours without any result. Help please!

 

[mkrishnan]

Are IP addresses on both the wired and wireless connections distributed in the same range? You have an unusual subnet IP address for the server...See this:

http://ask-leo.com/why_cant_i_connect_with_a_169254xx_ip_address.html

You should normally have a device with an IP address like this on your system.

So the first thing probably to do is figure out how to get all of your devices on normal subnet IP addresses on the same subnet.

 

[nikhilr51]

Thankyou mkrishnan, that would explain why i cant connect, these are the ips my computers have:
Router: 192.168.2.1
Powerbook: 192.168.2.6
Old Server: 169.254.79.244

The server used to have 192.168.2.10 when it was wired but when i changed it to wireless it got the 169 one. On the server my wirless program that came with the wireless adapter says that it's connected to the router but not the internet (i don't need internet anyway).

So how do i go about changing the ip to a 192.168... one?

Thankyou,
Nikhilr

 

[mkrishnan]

Per the link above, the 169... IP address means that your server is essentially not acquiring a proper connection to the wifi router. That "connected to the router but not to the internet" error message is sort of a euphemism. It means your network isn't working properly (it doesn't mean what you think -- that you can ignore it if you don't need an internet connection). What is happening is that the router is supposed to lease an IP to the server, and when it doesn't, the server makes one up. But since the router doesn't recognize the address, it doesn't work properly. So whenever you get that error message, you should always fix it.

So, what you should do is eliminate the usual suspects...

- Check if you are using MAC filtering, and if you are, that you have the correct MAC (each network interface has its own, so the wired and wireless MACs for the server are different).

- Check that you are not using any static IP addresses that are in the DHCP range (you may want a static subnet IP for your server, but it should be outside the DHCP range -- you can look at your manual for this, but typically this will mean that the server will end up with an IP like 192.168.2.101 and the DHCP will stop at .100).

- Compare the wireless settings on the server vs. the other XP device and/or try setting up the network all over again using the wizard.

Also if you're using WPA2, you may need SP3. I just recently bought my first Windows XP device (the last Windows PC I owned had 98 on it... I've used Win2k, XP, and 2003, but only at work where I was not the admin) -- my Eee Box had all kinds of trouble connecting to my AEBS on SP2. It could only acquire the connection if I made the SSID visible and allowed WPA1/TKIP connections (although oddly I could re-hide the SSID after I made the first acquisition). But when I upgraded to SP3, WPA2 worked fine.

Also out of curiousity, usually, the subnet IP addresses would be 192.168.1.x... how did it come to be 192.168.2.x? Is the router's IP 192.168.2.1? And if you have four devices on the router (router, server, XP notebook, Mac), then why are you getting IP addresses that end in 6 or 10 -- are there other devices on the network?

 

[nikhilr51]

This is getting very annoying.

I am using MAC filtering but i have added its address.

(not quite sure what your second point meant)

Tried that

Not using WPA2

Yes for some reason my router is 192.168.2.1

And there are other devices: 1 xp laptop, 1 vista laptop (got yesterday, dont like vista) a very old xp desktop and my neighbors were using it at one point (stopped that though).

I used to be able to look at all the computers connected wirelessly to my router via the 'DHCP client list' but after today its not showing anything. I also tried disabling the windows firewall and it wasnt there! The server isnt connecting to the router properly anymore!
This has not been working well so i'm just going to forget it.
Thanks for all your help though, youve been really helpfull.

Nikhilr