Networking issue with two SL macbooks and WinXP PCs

[spectre51]

So I'm at my parents house today setting up a new Linksys wireless router for them. Get it all setup and all computers get online no problem. All getting DHCP address from Linksys. Three Macs (Macbook, Macbook Pro and iBook, SL, SL and Tiger) and two Windows Xp professional comps.

After getting everyone online I went to try to setup printer sharing so my brother's MBP could print through one of the WinXP machines to a Epson Stylus CX6600. (the iBook worked fine) I kept getting the NT_STATUS_CONNECTION_REFUSED error. So I start troubleshooting and first thing I make sure is that all firewalls on all the comps is off, then checked that they could talk to each other.

Here is where it gets interesting.....the iBook can ping all the other computers. The PCs can ping each other and the iBook but not the MacBooks. The two MacBooks can ping each other and the iBook but not the Windows PCs.

All computers are on the same subnet with firewalls turned off and all machines running wirelessly. Funny thing is the MacBooks show up in My Network Places on the WinXP machines but you can't access them. The windows computers do not show up at all in the Finder on the two MacBooks.

The PCs are connected to the wireless via a hub with a Wireless Ethernet Bridge in the uplink port (802.11g) The two macbooks are 802.11n. I did a test with one Macbook by disabling airport and plugging it into the hub with along with the PCs and once I did that the PCs and that macbook could communicate like normal (and print) but the MacBook still just on the wireless could not talk to anyone then (other than the ibook still)

So to me it looks like there is some issue with the wireless g and n devices talk to each other save for the ibook. Which is why this makes no sense.

The linksys is a WRT160N the wireless setting are set as follows:

I tried changing the Network mode to b/g only and the radio channel to Standard 20MHz but those didn't seem to make a difference:

Anyone else got thoughts on this issue, its really buggin the crap out of me. I wish I had a 802.11n wireless ethernet bridge to try with the PCs to confirm this.

 

[r0k]

You might be better off using go->connect to server and then put the pc hostname (or ip address) in there and see if you can connect. I suggest setting the router to make dhcp ip lease time 72 hours or more so you aren't faced with ips changing on you while you are debugging things.

Note that Finder is not that great about discovering and displaying windows pc's. Also windows pc's aren't that great about being discoverable if you don't have file sharing turned on and at least one share enabled. The same is true for seeing macs from pc's. You will need to enable SMB file sharing on the macs for the pc's to connect to them.

Another thing to try is to change the router so it's set to bg mixed or g only. See if everything can talk back and forth then.

 

[spectre51]

I tried the go->connect option as well with no luck. Can't connect via that and can't ping the machine I am trying to connect to.

I tried changing the settings on the router to bg-mixed and g-only and still the two snow leopard macbooks could not access the Windows PCs. The only time I can get one of the macbooks to see and access the PC is to plus the macbook into the hub the PC is on which is getting wireless via the uplink port from the wireless ethernet bridge.

This is the most bizarre network issue I have seen....makes no sense.

 

[sdsvtdriver]

what kind of hub?
what kind of bridge?

 

[spectre51]

I don't have the model numbers handy but the hub is a 5 port 10/100 linksys workgroup switch and the bridge is a wireless-g Ethernet bridge from linksys.