Internet Connection Sharing kills network

[thestoat]

Hi guys,

I've been trying to set up a wireless network between three machines as follows:

Host machine runs Windows XP and has broadband internet access through a USB cable to a Speedtouch modem.

Client A runs Windows XP, and Client B runs Windows 98.

The host machine has a wireless USB network card. The two clients are both laptops, and have PCMCIA wireless network cards. There is also a Safecom NAT wireless router which is not physically connected to any machine.

Now, I'd like to set up a wireless network in which the host connects directly to the internet and the two clients connect through the host's broadband connection. I have run the network setup wizard on all three machines and the network seems to be in place, all three machines can "see" eachother and share files. However this only works when the host computer's internet connection is not set up to be shared! When I change the properties to allow other users to share the connection, the host computer disappears from the network and only the two clients can see eachother.

I've been trying to sort this out for days, and it's driving me insane. Another peculiarity is that the router has a control panel which can be accessed by entering it's IP address (192.168....) in an internet browser. However only the two clients are able to do this, if I try with the host computer I get a DNS error. One of the control panel options is a DHCP clients list, this shows the name, MAC address and IP address of machines connected to the wireless network. Unless I disable internet connection sharing, only the two client machines appear here.

The router is set up as follows (default options):

Lan IP Address: 192.168.123.254
WAN Type: Dynamic IP Address
Host name:

DHCP Server: enable
IP Pool Starting Address: 100
IP Pool Ending Address: 199

Wireless Network ID (SSID): networkname
Channel: 10

The router status screen always looks like this:

Remaining Lease Time: 0:00:00 (reconfiguring)
IP Address: 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask: 0.0.0.0
Gateway: 0.0.0.0 (Unreachable)
Domain Name Server: 0.0.0.0

Eventually the "reconfiguring" sidenote is replaced by a "Renew" button. However pressing this only redisplays the "reconfiguring" message. The other fields never change.

Octets: 56289 Inbound 32800 Outbound
Unicast Packets: 0 Inbound 0 Outbound
Non-Unicast Packets: 358 Inbound 100 Outbound

As I said, this is driving me mad. I'd be infinitely grateful for any help or suggestions.

Thanks,

Adam

 

[anthonyrstanley]

Sup

Hey you said you wanted to go threw the host computer make the default gateway static to that computers IP. For all the other computers. Anyways Xp did a poor poor job with networking. . And i have ran out of ideas that is sad that all i said was the static thing i feel like a dope.

It isn't really something that they can see eachother just make sure they can ping with XP pinging is like being connected.

 

[Chipmonk]

usually when you share a computers interal connection to the outside world you would usually use two nics in the host computer, try to use one nic to recieve the signal from the two laptops and then the second nic to connect to the internet.

 

[anthonyrstanley]

That nic thang is more of a Direct No way to go around deal. The setting up the Default gateway on the user computers to the host master computer. Is a step or set up that says in order to go anywhere you must go threw this IP. Just like being wired buttt no wires.. hhuhuhuhu