Cannot ping desktop PC

[bobolito]

I have tried pinging by IP address. Since we're all using IP addresses directly, NBTSTAT, NetBIOS, etc. have nothing to do here.

Both my laptop and my desktop are wireless. I have always been able access my desktop from my laptop and viceversa. But I lost the ability to access my desktop in ANY WAY (no pinging reply, no response from \\COMPUTERNAME, no response from \\IP_ADDRESS) a couple of days ago. I am not sure if it has to do with my running Tune Up 2007 which cleans up the registry, but that's about the only thing I've done in the last few days. But the strange thing is that I've also ran Tune Up 2007 in my laptop and did the same cleaning procedures and my laptop is still accessible.

I have tried using a third and fourth computer. The third computer connected wirelessly, the fourth connected through Ethernet cable to my wireless router. Neither the third or the fourth computer can ping the desktop computer or contact it in any other way.

The desktop computer hosts a printer, so this problem means I can no longer print from any of the computers in my home network and I can no longer use Remote Desktop to my desktop computer. The desktop, however, can access all other computers on the network and the internet just fine.

All firewalls are disabled in all computers. I am not running any other firewall software in any of the computers. I checked everything that Tier 1 tech support would suggest, "Simple File Sharing" is unchecked, have tried rebooting, disabling/enabling the wireless adapter, rebooting my router, etc. renewing IP addresses, etc. I even checked that all computers are connecting to my wireless router only (just in case it had jumped to my neighbor's open router), and also wireless signal strength is excellent on all wireless computers. I also tried resetting TCP/IP using the command netsh int ip reset [log_file_name] and netsh winsock reset to no avail.

To put it another way, my desktop computer is in "one way mode" where it can connect to all other computers, but all other computers in my local LAN cannot connect to it. This means I cannot connect to any shared folders on my desktop from any other computer and also I cannot ping my desktop from any of the other computers.

I am thinking that somehow the TCP/IP stack is messed up on Windows and might require a Windows complete re-install. However, we all know how that sucks and will be my last resort if I cannot figure this out. I need to be able to print from the other computers like I used to before. This is very frustrating.

By the way, the desktop CAN ping itself. In other words, my desktop's IP is 192.168.2.11 and from my desktop I ping that address and it replies. However, from any other computer I cannot ping that address.

Here are my IP addresses:

Desktop = 192.168.2.11 (wireless)
Laptop 1 = 192.168.2.13 (wireless)
Laptop 2 = 192.168.2.12 (wireless)
Computer 1 = 192.168.2.10 (wired)

All computers are running Windows XP Pro w/SP2

[Lespaul20]

Maybe try uninstalling/Reinstalling the NIC and see if that changes anything. You could try just uninstalling/reinstalling the TCP/IP protocol from you adapter and see if that does anything also.

[bobolito]

I already tried uninstalling/reinstalling/disabling/enabling the Wireless NIC and it made no difference. I also found that there should be nothing wrong with my wireless NIC or its drivers because I tried hooking up my desktop through its built-in wired NIC (while disabling the wireless NIC) and I was having the same exact problems. I could not contact my desktop computer via PING <IP_ADDRESS> but the desktop had no problem pinging the other computers and had no problem connecting to the Internet either.

The TCP/IP protocol cannot be uninstalled from Windows XP according to Microsoft. However, you can reset the stack and winsock, which I already did. According to Microsoft this achieves the same result as uninstalling/reinstalling TCP/IP. This is from their Knowledge Base.

I think something is corrupted in Windows and is blocking incoming communication.

[mojo]

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsockxpfix.html

[bobolito]

Thanks Mojo. Downloaded and tried that program. Still no dice.

Is there any diagnostic tool that I can get that will allow me to see details about my TCP/IP connections, like TCP port status (listening, etc.)? I am suspecting that maybe the TCP ports are closed (the same way a firewall would block them) and I don't know how to open them. There is currently no firewall software blocking them.

[glc]

Try installing NETBEUI to get file/print sharing working.

[bobolito]

Thanks....however, the outcome was to simply re-install Windows. Everything is fine now. Sometimes I hate microsoft and how inflexible Windows is when it comes to TCP/IP.