On 28 Dec 00, at 15:54, Anant K.Hardikar wrote:

> I have two computers at home connected by cat5 crossover UTP cable
> for file, printer and internet sharing. The system is working fine
> except that the other computer(486 machine Win95) fails to boot if
> the host computer(P1 win98 SE) is running. The Host computer  uses
> dialup connection to access internet. I must shut down the Host PC
> in order to  boot the 486 PC , otherwise it will stop at the
> window95 startstup logo screen. If we boot 486 first followed by
> booting host PC then everything works fine. When disconnected from
> network cable both PCs  are working normal.
>
> Host P1 PC has 3com Fast Etherlink 10/100 PCI NIC
> 486 PC has Intel Ether Express Pnp enabled PRO/10
> I downloaded the drivers about 6 months back(hope to be latest).

  Although these are both fine cards, experience indicates that they
don't behave *exactly* the same.  You *might* get better results
using the same brand in both PCs, or one "name" brand and one generic.

> In the Network Properties> Configuration > TCP/IP, NetBEUI and
> IPX/SPX protocols are seen on both machines. Internet sharing is
> done from win98 SE builtin internet sharing feature.

  This is probably excessive.

  NetBEUI is a local-only broadcast-based protocol.  Its presence
might be masking problems with another protocol.  There are reasons
you might want to have it, but I'd delete it for now until things
work.
  IPX/SPX was common on older Novell systems.  There was a period
when many LAN games were supporting it, but I think that has passed.
Unless you know you need it for some reason, I'd get rid of it.

  The Internet speaks TCP/IP.  You definitely need it.
  It might be useful to look at the details of how it's configured on
the two machines.  You can pull up a DOS prompt (or Start|Run) and
type "ipconfig /all >foo.txt" and then include the two foo.txt (one
from each machine) files in a follow-up message.  Okay?

Dave Gillett

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