Help!! I've got 3 laptops running XP Pro SP2. I'm trying to get them all to connect to the internet in a hotel I'm staying at. They're all set to assign IP addresses automatically, and they all seem to work ok in this respect - the DHCP server gives out an IP address to each machine and there's a full set of teeth showing... e.g. =====================BEGIN================== Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : PAUL Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No Ethernet adapter PCMCIA Network Card: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : AmbiCom 10/100 Fast Ethernet PC Card(AMB8110) Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-10-7A-B6-3A-85 Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.102 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 212.58.96.3 212.58.96.8 Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 14 March 2006 19:35:17 Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 15 March 2006 19:35:17 =====================END==================== One of the laptops (the one I'm on now) works just fine - plug it in and away we go on the internet. The other two seem to get assigned all the same sort of IP info as pasted above, but I tried pinging and although this works for 127.0.0.1 & the IP address assigned for each machine, I get "request timed out" when I try to ping the default gateway (192.168.0.1). I've been right through each machine's setting to the best of my ability (firewall settings etc.) to make sure they're all the same. I've even reinstalled Windows on both of the other machines to try to fix it. I know one of them DID work on the hotel network a few weeks back, then stopped (I suspected that my colleague who was using the other machine "did something to it") but, having been through and reinstalled everything again, now I'm not so sure. Really baffled me this one. I even tried changing workgroup names to see if I could "break" this one to find the problem, but I can't. Maybe one clue I can give you about the machine which used to work but now doesn't - in addition to the LAN connection it's also got a 1394 connection. I read this was a firewire thing but I think it's always been there, so I doubt it's got much to do with anything. I did try bridging this with the LAN connection (I was desperate - trying anything) but it didn't seem to do any good. However, when I removed the 1394 connection (I've also tried disabling it, btw) so that the bridge only showed the LAN connection, I then seemed to be receiving a small number of packets, but I still couldn't ping or do much else with it. Come on folks - someone help me out here. Make me look stoopid by telling me it's something simple I've missed. Thanks Paul

One other thing I've just spotted is that when I just switched cables and did an ipconfig /all on one of the machines which isn't working properly is that where it says "Node Type", on the working machine this says "mixed" but on the non-working one it says "unknown". Does this mean anything?

you might have listed this but, have you tried disabling the firewalls on all pc's and then pinged them again?

Yes, thanks. Tried that and everything else I know. Just going to run Spybot & AdAware on one of the machines to see if there's a spyware problem. I'll post back when I get it cracked.

The interesting thing I've discovered is that the "good" laptop connects using a PCMCIA ethernet card (no built in NIC). I slotted this in one of the other laptops and it worked! A new guy arrived today and the same thing with his laptop - built in NIC doesn't work - slot in my card and it works! Anyone any ideas why this should be? Sounds like the problem isn't with the laptops.