[Oisín]

Hey everybody

We have a small network going here in our apartment (2 laptops joined together via a switch), and the past few days, we've been having some trouble with it...

It's two PC's, both running XP. The reason we set up the network to begin with was that the broadband internet we have will only give us one IP address, and we already had a switch, so we didn't want to go out and buy a router.

Instead we now use NetProxy to share the connection. I run the program on my computer, and Kirsten (flatmate) uses my computer as a proxy server, and this works fine.

However, the past few days, Kirsten's computer has developped a very annoying habit of suddenly deciding it doesn't want to be on the network anymore. Or rather, only pretend to be on the network perhaps. When I look at the switch, the light is still on, indicating that there is a connection there. And when I click on "Show computers in workgroup", it shows me both my own and Kirsten's, so it looks like she's on.

However, if I double-click on hers, instead of bringing me to a list of her shared folders etc., it gives me:

\\Nyimala is not available. It is possible you are not permitted to use this network resource. Contact the server administrator to find out if you are permitted.

Network path not found.

Occasionally, her computer will disappear altogether from the list, but then reappear two minutes later. Sometimes it works, and then all of a sudden, after being online for a while, it will just stop working. And then after a while, it might work again, and then stop. Pretty much at random, so far as I can tell.

I don't know anything about networking, so I was hoping maybe one of you gurus in here could give me some pointers at to how I might try to work this out or what could be causing the problem (perhaps Kirsten's network cable?) or where to look or something... assuming you haven't all fallen asleep by this long post...

[John Strung]

You can probably find a router for $20 - $40 and it will work. How much is your time worth?

Also a router will provide a hardware firewall and you won't need the host computer booted if you are surfing with the client. Sharing the internet using a proxy or internet connection sharing is more trouble than it is worth.

[Oisín]

Originally posted by John Strung:
You can probably find a router for $20 - $40 and it will work. How much is your time worth?

Not here... average prices are about 700 Yuan ($85) - my time isn't worth that much, 'cause it's only for another two weeks, then Kirsten's going back home...

Also a router will provide a hardware firewall and you won't need the host computer booted if you are surfing with the client. Sharing the internet using a proxy or internet connection sharing is more trouble than it is worth.

I don't need to boot the host... well, I haven't booted my computer at all since we started using this system (about three weeks ago and it only started acting up two or three days ago)...