Here's an odd one. This is my first time networking with Win XP. My friend here has a PC running Win 98. Setting that one up is easy. The XP one is a laptop and we have them both in the same workgroup. We are using the IP's 190.111.111.111 and 190.111.111.112. Both are in the subnet 255.255.255.0. Everything is set up fine. The problem we're encountering is that the XP computer keeps connecting to the network and disconnecting over and over. I haven't had much of a chance to look at his computer nor have I had a chance to fiddle with any settings. We're going to try some more stuff but if anyone out there has some suggestions, they'd be more than welcome. Thanks.

You should set the IP option to "obtain an IP automatically" on all computers, unless one of them connects directly to the net. Then it should have the IP assigned by the ISP and the other should be set to auto assign.

Nope. Thanks though. We're trying to create a peer-to-peer network between the two of them in a workgroup called home. But I'm thinking that it may have something to do with the network card in the laptop if not just a setting in XP. Before anything is configured at all, once the cable is plugged in, it bounces back and forth between the connected/disconnected. We'll keep trying, but I'd appreciate any other ideas.

http://www.wown.com/

http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/47503.html