J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I am no networking expert but I know enough to cause myself problems, trying to get file sharing working between my various pcs, sometimes it works slowly, other times it tells me I might not have permissions to access this network resource (even though its not permissions as it worked earlier and nothing has changed.

I understand the terminology but not quite how it all hangs together, I think its a problem with Names resolution, I can ping the other pc from here but not via its Netbios name but I am getting confused between my WINS and my DNS, is my wireless router the DNS server ?

The machines are configured via DHCP, should I assign a static IP and have a hosts file instead.

I have set up a workgroup but I still cant share files properly, I thought it may have something to do with signal strength on the wireless bit but it gets a full set of signal strength bars and is only a few feet away, when it occasionally works it will play a music file from the main pc but it stutters ?

Just need some pointers please !

mike1210

does it work if both machines are hard wired? IE connected with cable

DHCP will list the router as the DNS server but to be honest it's the path to get to the DNS servers, the router will forward DNS lookups to the ISP's DNS servers

firewalls disbaled on both machines?

are you using simple file sharing on both machines?

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

Easy start is to check that all the p.c.'s are in the same workgroup and are in the same subnet

i.e. have ip addresses like 192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

Static IP's mean quicker start up as they don't have to start firing off DHCP ENQ and ACK packets to get the ip address before the network comes up

If you are getting low quality traffic I'd be looking at the router itself but then I'd prefer to run video / audio streaming from a local source rather than across any network

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Cheers for the info lads, will have another go tonight.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Well that worked, just set the pcs to static IP and now it will share files.

Cheers

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

Glad to hear it - I know on large network the use of static ip's is not a good idea, but on small ones I can't see the problem.

Plus it also means that someone needs to know the subnet you're using to get internal access to p.c.'s so it's an extra (albeit trivial) layer of defense