If you got a minute shoot me a response. So the lab at my school is all screwed up and some of the teachers asked me to look at it. (One section of the network) The server can ping the client but the client cannot ping the server but the client and server can access the internet. They are connected through a switch with nothing difficult setup on it. No VLANS, trunking, or anything elaborate. No matter what I have tried I cannot get a client to join the domain. I have DNS, DHCP, and Active Directory setup on the PDC. Additionally I have the user account and computer added to active directory. I have the client pointing to the server for DNS and Gateway and the server pointing to itself for DNS. Any words of advice would be greatly appreciated. I’ve never had so many problems joining a client to a domain. I wiped The server and did a fresh install. I was thinking about changing the method the client authenticates with the server in the registry. But that can cause a lot of problems and in the end I may have to wipe the client and reinstall. Any ideas anyone. Sorry if I sound like I'm on speed, but I've been at it for 13 hours straight now and I'm about to pass out from confusion/frustration.

Have you checked to see the built in firewall on the server isn't on and set to disallow all connections?

Also, when you PING the machines, try PINGing both the IP address as well as the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) that will help narrow down any DNS issues you might have...