aka

Honorable Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
Messages
24
Having trouble with one computer on my network. I have 4 computers in the network, 2 desktops, and 2 laptops.
3 are running Win7 Home Premium, 1 is running XP sp3.
3 of the computers have no trouble accessing the other machines. (one of these is the XP machine).
But my desktop machine (Win7) is only able to see my laptop. The other 2 don't appear in the network map.
I can ping the absent computers.
I am not using HomeGroup.

Workstation running
DHCP Client running
DNS Client running
Server running
TCP/IP Netbios helper running
Computer Browser running
Network Discovery is ON
File and Printer sharing is ON
Windows Firewall OFF
All computers running BWMeter with firewall. (Turning BWMeter off changes nothing)

I ran the Network Diagnostics tool, and after running for 1.5 hours, it was still "Waiting for results", so I canceled it.

Router is a Buffalo WRT-HP-54G with DD-WRT firmware.

I don't know what else to try. I can't understand why my desktop can detect one, but not the other two computers on the network.
Any help will be much appreciated.... I have very little hair left to pull out at this point.
 
Solution

A lot of people often use the word "see" and the word "Access" as if they are interchangeable. So let's concentrate on the See, you say "I can ping the absent computers", can you ping them by their netbios name or just the ip address. Check and double check to make sure there are no duplicate or missing MAC address on any of the NICs, also make sure there are no duplicate machine names and all machines are in the same workgroup.
Now when you attempt to access the absent machines can you use Link Removed or Link Removed is either one successful?
 
Solution
Also trying using ping - a 192.168.nnn.nnn (the ip of the missing machine) from the machine that can't see it and see if the first line of the return results indicates the netbios name of the missing machine. If it does...is it accurate? if not try typing nbtstat -R to flush the netbios cache on the problem machine.
 
I should have said in the earlier post that you can examine the contents of the netbios cache by typing nbtstat -c at a command prompt.
 
Now when you attempt to access the absent machines can you use \\machinename\sharename or \\ipaddressOfMachine\sharename is either one successful?

\\machinename, no joy
\\ipaddress, success! I can access all machines using this.


Nope, no netbios name displayed.... I did the netbios flush earlier.

I should have said in the earlier post that you can examine the contents of the netbios cache by typing nbtstat -c at a command prompt.

No names in cache.

Appreciate the help...
 
Well, actually, I didn't seem to have been of much help. You can try forcing the netbios information by editing the LMHost file or maybe just map a drive on the problem machine to a share on a machine that it can't see using the Link Removed and see if that will pop anything loose. Also reboot everything and bring the problem machine up last just to make sure all resources are available to it when it starts polling.
 
Also reboot everything and bring the problem machine up last just to make sure all resources are available to it when it starts polling.

Was really hoping that would do it, but no.......

I might try the other suggestions after the holidays. Thanks again. Maybe you didn't help me solve the riddle, but I learned something, just the same.