OK, so I'm trying to set up a LAN to share the cable internet with all of my roommates. We have a netgear router to hook up the 4 computers. 2 have XP, 2 have win98se. I was having troubles, but finally seemed to have things working when I remembered to reset the router. We had 3 computers up and running(the fourth still needs a cable, so it's not hooked up yet). It worked for a day, and then stopped. Now only the XP computer is connecting and the other computers (98SE machines) don't. For the life of me I have no idea what to do. I've been trying for a couple of days to no avail, and now my roommates are all mad at me since I appointed myself network administrator. Any tips out there to help me solve this? Any really cool sites to help out a novice like me? Thanks in advance for any replies.

On the 98 machines have you tried specifying the ip address to the same as the one on the XP machines except the last number. Be sure to have the same subnet mask. Hope this helps.

Thank you so much for the response, I actually have the network back up and running for the most part. Now everyone is connected, including both XP machines and my 98. I'm not even sure how I got it to work, but I did notice that the ip and gateway numbers from the machine that was connected were not correct for use with this router, so I fiddled with some things, then fiddled some more. I'm not familiar with XP, so had no idea what I was doing, but I got her numbers to match what I was getting on my machine, then everything was good. The other 98 is still having problems. It's an old Compaq laptop, and although it has the same OS and RAM as my desktop, it is a piece of crap in comparison. When I ran winipcfg, her network card isn't even there on the pull down menu. I removed the card and reinstalled it, but that didn't work. Her card my be faulty, I don't know. Apparantly she has been having problems off and on for the past 6 months or so. When I start her computer, all the lights on her external NIC come on, and they all stay on, no flashing whatsoever on the green activity light. Something is messed up there, and I don't know what. I think I'm just gonna let her deal with it, since obviously everyone else's computers are working, she no longer blames me. Again, thanks so much for the suggestion, I might try it on her laptop, but I'm almost sure that's not the problem there. Her card doesn't even show up on the device listing.

It might be the network card. I have had a few network card fail on me, they look like they will work because the lights are on but they can't connect. Before you get a new network card try reseating that card or even put in a different PCI slot.

For all the clients, go into Networking properties and see that you have Client for Microsoft Networking and the TCP/IP protocol installed. Set up TCP/IP to "assign IP Address automatically" and "Use DHCP server for WINS Resolution". Disable software firewalls on these machines or set them all to "trust" IP range 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.255.255. All clients must have the same Workgroup name and, if it's set, the same Scope-ID to see each other on the network. (Scope ID isn't used much anymore so this should be at the default.) If any clients have the NETBEUI protocol installed, remove it; doesn't work across a router. You may need IPX/SPX protocol, however, for older Internet appliances and some games. For the client that currently doesn't work, see if she has a firewall enabled on her machine; unless it's set to allow connections to the IP range 192.168.0.1 through 192.168.255.255 it won't allow you to connect to the LAN. Either disable the firewall or set it to "trust" this range. Next, ping IP Address 127.0.0.1. If you don't get a response back, you probably have a bad NIC. Finally make sure her Workgroup name is correct.