No problem. Thanks for your clarification on what you are doing to troubleshoot the problem. Well, one thing is probably for certain, and that is the hARDWARE in XP1 PC is different than XP2 PC. There are subtle differences there that can cause problems too; even if say both XP1 & XP2 are both Dell PCs, or both HP PCs, etc. I agree that you have a configuration issue with that one PC as you suggest. I've given you the tools you need to fix that--run
SYSTEM RESTORE, Windows RESET, and various software/hardware troubleshooting and various repair tools.
Another shortcut I could suggest, besides junking the bad XP PC,
is to simply replace the hard drive in the bad one, and reload XP onto it with SP3 and all other updates. Takes 1-2 days to do this. Retest for your network problem. If you have an old hard drive lying around you could do this, if not, you can buy one on ebay for under $50. If the problem is resolved, and it's fixed, you can bypass all the hardware testing I usually would do (the
RIP-OUT step) and there you go!
If however, the problem persists, then you have to consider my other suggestions in my previous post to get to a resolution to that problem. It might cost you a couple of days of your time, and possibly zero-dollar cost if you have an older hard drive you can use for testing (
might need to be an IDE drive instead of the newer SATA drives). That's certainly cheaper than hiring a network engineer like me to come and out fix your whole network for hundreds of dollars.
Just a thought.
Sometimes, drastic solutions are the only solutions of last resort if you try everything else and can't spend any money to fix the problem or simply don't have the money to do so. Being on a fixed-income myself, I get this.
Cheers!
<<<BBJ>>>