is your DHCP service starting with their machines? Start>control panel> administrative tools> services> DHCP client, make sure it is started, and set to automatic Complete Computer Service, Inc. NW Indiana

You know, i didnt check to see if it was started... it had always previously worked and then it just stopped. I suppose she might have gotten some type of bug that turned it to "off" or somthing. Thanks for the advice I'm going up there tonight i will check that one out. Any other thoughts before i go? Thanks,

I seem to have exactly the same problem as you do, Brian, but haven't managed to find any usable solution to it. Did you find any way to fix it? There are 11 computers connected to the same SMC Barricade router, of which 10 work perfectly fine but one doesn't. For some reason it is unable to use DHCP to find itself and address and thus uses the 169.x.x.x address. However, if I reboot the Barricade, then use "ipconfig /renew", it gets the address perfectly fine. I also checked that DHCP client service starts automatically and is running even when no address is seemingly found. Anybody has a solution to this? Jani

have you tried XP SP2? I saw a knowledgeBase article talking about this. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313896 Let me know if this works. I'm having a similar problem and I'm waiting on my IT team to update my XP.

It sounds like you have a corrupt winsock entry. Try the steps below to see if this fixes your problem. Click Start/Run Type regedit then click OK Delete the two registry keys listed below... HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock2 ** Restart the computer Click Start/Control Panel/Network Connections Right click on your Local Area Connection icon and left click on properties Click on the Install button Select protocol and click Add Click the Have Disk button Type "c:\windows\inf" and click OK Select Internet Protocol TCP/IP and click OK close the properties window and restart the computer Your Network card should now properly request the IP address from your routers DHCP server.

I had the same problem. It does not seem that we are alone. There seems to be quite a bit of advice on this. I definately think it is an SP2 problem. I just bought a new computer. I upgraded it to XP Pro. It worked fine. It was after I downloaded the updates that I had the problem. A google search will give you guite a few fixes. I did them all (Each at least twice.) I don't think there is a magic formula. The one that finally worked for me was the modem shutdown with the ethernet cable unplugging. However, since that is the simplest fix, I tried it at least half a dozen times before doing all the other fixes. I think you have to do the whole gamut of fixes and what fixes it is somewhat random. It seems to me that you have to first get the Microsoft patch for this, then get your DHCP server cleaned out and reset (ipconfig/flush). You also need to reset your winsock registries. (Someone has already done a program for you to do it, the link is below) Then finally you can do the modem shutdown and cable resetting. (I didn't do it until the end out of frustration, but you may want to do the modem shutdown and cable resetting at each step. ;) These web sites will help you out. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;884020 http://www.click2web.com/169.html Good Luck. My computer was down for a week before I could get to it, and it took me about 6 hours to fix.

The Google searches that worked the best for answers was: XP 169 Ip address You could add on the end "bug" or "problem" Drill down a couple of pages.

I have the same exact problem. Well almost... Here's my configuration: 3 computers hooked up to a D-Link DI-524 router. One is Win 2000 Pro (This is the problem computer, hooked up to router via network cable), one is Linux (hooked up to router also via network cable), the last is Win 2000 (connected to router with wireless card). Eveything was working fine for at least a cpl months. Until yesterday... I had Panda anti-virus on my Win 2000 computer. Updates were expired so I got myself a new Panda version. Disconnected the network cable from the computer to be safe when uninstalling/reinstalling the new Panda version. Did the uninstall/reinstall. Connected the network cable to the computer again and then the problem started. My computer wouldn't get an IP address from the router and the IP address from IPCONFIG shows as 169.254.X.X. I cannot release/renew or do anything with the IPCONFIG command. I cannot reach the web based admin tool for the router thru 192.168.0.1. I switched ports, used a different cable but thats didn't fix it. I googled a little bit and saw some people suggest reinstalling TCP/IP which I did but it didn't help. If I set a static IP in 192.168.0.X range then I can ping the default gateway (192.168.0.1) but I still can't open the web based admin (192.168.0.1) in IE. I'm stumped. Must be something with DHCP client I guess since my other two computers Linux (network cable) and Win 2000 (wireless) are working fine with the same router. This looks like a widespread problem. I'd appreciate it if someone finds and post a solution.

For winxp there is a tool to help do this. The fact the MS released this indicates there must be a fair number of folks experiencing these issues: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;299357

Had much the same problem, tried response number eleven submitted by Rob. Worked perfectly!! Thanks!

I had a similar problem to this and (after much headache) figured out that VPN software I had installed (SSH Sentinel) seemed to cause the problem. I have yet to find a solution, but I tried many things which did not work and as soon as I uninstalled SSH Sentinel, my wireless connection cleared right up. Hope this saves someone from the same headache...