No DHCP Address on One Computer on LAN

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fred Marshall
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Fred Marshall

I'm working on a small LAN of 5 XP Pro computers that has a DSL
modem/router.
The router is set up to provide DHCP in the range 192.168.0.x.
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0.
All of the computers are set up to get IP addresses and DNS automatically.
All but one of the computers works as configured.

One computer does not get an IP address by DHCP. It comes up APIPA instead
with an address 169.xxx.xxx.xxx.
Assigning it a static 192.168.0.x IP address with subnet mask 255.255.255.0,
192.168.0.1 gateway and DNS IP addresses works fine.

The DHCP failure should not be!
The failing computer is a laptop that was dropped.
However, everything seems to be working re: hardware.
Any ideas why the DHCP assignment of an IP address would fail?
I need to understand this.

Thanks,

Fred
 
"Fred Marshall" said:
I'm working on a small LAN of 5 XP Pro computers that has a DSL
modem/router.
The router is set up to provide DHCP in the range 192.168.0.x.
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0.
All of the computers are set up to get IP addresses and DNS automatically.
All but one of the computers works as configured.

One computer does not get an IP address by DHCP. It comes up APIPA instead
with an address 169.xxx.xxx.xxx.
Assigning it a static 192.168.0.x IP address with subnet mask 255.255.255.0,
192.168.0.1 gateway and DNS IP addresses works fine.

The DHCP failure should not be!
The failing computer is a laptop that was dropped.
However, everything seems to be working re: hardware.
Any ideas why the DHCP assignment of an IP address would fail?
I need to understand this.

Thanks,

Fred
Click to expand...

Are you sure that the dropped computer's network hardware is still
working properly?

Try the tips here:

Windows XP Network Troubleshooting - Problems with Network Cards
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/troubleshoot/networkcard.htm
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Steve Winograd said:
Are you sure that the dropped computer's network hardware is still
working properly?

Try the tips here:

Windows XP Network Troubleshooting - Problems with Network Cards
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/troubleshoot/networkcard.htm
--
Click to expand...

Steve,

Thanks for the reply.

Well, I've not used up much of the client's time on this as it does work
now.
I doubted hardware because it's working just fine.
The *only* issue is that it isn't getting an IP address and going to APIPA
if it's set up to use DHCP.
That doesn't seem like hardware - but of course doesn't eliminate hardware
as the cause.

As the page you forwarded suggests, next time I'm there I might try
reinstalling the card in software. Otherwise, it's inside a laptop so doing
things like changing slots don't make sense I don't imagine - I try to stay
away from hardware (unsuccessfully) and don't dig into laptops at all...
something about being all thumbs and wanting to protect the client's
interest.

So, I was looking for a possible software reason that would cause this sort
of thing to happen. I did look into the router to see if the IP range for
DHCP was too narrow and it was in fact quite wide. I don't immediately see
anything at the router that would cause this to happen.

So, if you're thinking hardware then that biases my evaluation in that
direction.

Fred
 
Fred, as only a check...

Is the Local router set to limit the number of DHCP clients or address
ranges?
 
Brian,

thanks for the reply.

As I said, it does not limit the address range. I've not found a setting
regarding the number of clients.....

Apparently this had been working before....

Fred
 
Ok, last thing I have seen like this was MAC Address Masking. Again, only as
a thought is the pest system broadcasting a fake already in use MAC
address?? That would trick up the DHCP into thinking it had already set that
value and skipping the request.
 
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