xp-home wont dhcp to ericsson cablemodem - need advice

[mpdsville]

Neighbor's PC.. They got cable modem service. ericsson device.
PC is dell dimesion 6550. System reports 10mb FDX connection,
but doesn't DHCP. shows the MS canned address. XP home edition
w/ SP2. I looked over the network settings , looked OK.

Neighbor reported cable guy spent 1hr there and left stumped. Cable
guy plugged in hus laptop + all was fine.

I went next door and:
- loaded fresh/new AV+ scrubbed the box
- removed all av + spybot + firewall S/W
- reloaded SP2 (cause I didn't see it load the 1st time)
- verified/updated the lan card drivers
- installed a known good PCI lan card (on the odd chance that the
built in card was shot). SAME BEHAVIOR
- put my lan card back in my XP-pro box(no Sp2), and put my PC on
the same wire.. NO PROBLEM (i was suprised)
- put the problem system back on the wire and disabled the
new MS security center facilities. (several permutations)

By my progress so far, I'm figuring its not the hardware at all
(my lan card would have worked)
Its not the cable modem side (or my PC wouldn't have worked)

I'm wintel-smart enough (learned thru the school of hard knocks)
to say the control panel settings , drivers, and devices stuff
looks right. tcpip properties is set to DHCP.

So the problem is somewhere in XP

Anyone got a suggestion on what troubleshooting angles I should
try next?

Thanks! Mike D

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Neighbor's PC.. They got cable modem service. ericsson device.
PC is dell dimesion 6550. System reports 10mb FDX connection,
but doesn't DHCP. shows the MS canned address. XP home edition
w/ SP2. I looked over the network settings , looked OK.

Mike,

please have a look at http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSP2.htm.

Hans-Georg

 

[Ben]

If you've got the same problem I've got, SP2 has a problem
browsing the LAN, therefore cannot find the DHCP server.

I got around it by disabling DHCP and assigning static IP
to the LAN side of the router. Assign static ip in the
same subnet to each PC, using the router's LAN ip as
gateway. Assign DNS on the PCs to the ISPs DNS servers,
NOT the router.

Go to IE Tools/Internet Options/Connections/LAN settings
tab and clear all checkboxes.

PCs on the LAN still won't see each other, but that should
get your Internet service running.

Regards,
-Ben

 

[mpdsville]

Mike,

please have a look at http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSP2.htm.

Hans-Georg

No joy there. Not sure if SP2 did it or other factors.

Completely disabled SP2 security center, thenbacked out
the patch. no good.. wound up reloading the PC
from CD.. applied all patches PRE sp2 and all is well.

Will install SP2 next week, and i'm sure it will behave.

Typical MS solution I guess. Glad I'm a unix admin.

MPD

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

No joy there. Not sure if SP2 did it or other factors.

Sorry for that. Wish I knew everything, but I don't.

Completely disabled SP2 security center, thenbacked out
the patch. no good.. wound up reloading the PC
from CD.. applied all patches PRE sp2 and all is well.

Yeah, that's the last resort.

Perhaps installing SP2 right away would have been quicker,
because it saves you from having to install all those patches.

Will install SP2 next week, and i'm sure it will behave.

Typical MS solution I guess. Glad I'm a unix admin.

Why Windows then? -)

Hans-Georg

 

[mpdsville]

Sorry for that. Wish I knew everything, but I don't.


Yeah, that's the last resort.

Perhaps installing SP2 right away would have been quicker,
because it saves you from having to install all those patches.


Why Windows then? -)

Because it was my NEIGHBORS pc.. The O/S was not my choice, just
the rescue.. Thanks for the input though..