Re: A little FYI

From: Duane Arnold (notme_at_notme.com)
Date: 11/26/03 

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:37:11 GMT

David <davidwnh@adelphia.net> wrote in
news:VWPwb.32621$m84.4555580@news1.news.adelphia.net:

> And keep saying it over and over again...but you're wrong as usual.
> This is akin to recommending to someone to reinstall their OS for some
> simple configuration issue. It may work...but it may not and may
> simply cause unnecessary grief and a waste of one's precious time. The
> user will "more often than not" end up with the same problem if they
> use your advice. Sometimes it will work if it is due to a registry
> setting or file which was inadvertently changed or corrupted. More
> often than not if you don't try to diagnose what the actual problem
> was you end up at square one in no time, because you have applied a
> fix for a different problem or end up making the same configuration
> error. You don't try different fixes one by one until you figure out
> what the problem might have been. You figure out the problem then
> apply a single fix so you don't break something else or end up in the
> same situation. These days most of the time this particular problem
> is associated with a misconfigured OS, adapter, firewall, or network
> settings. Maybe faulty network equipment, or even just a sporadically
> congested network. There are so many reasons for the 169.xxx issue,
> most which have nothing to do with a corrupted stack. This is just
> *one* symptom which several different problems cause.
>
> Ultimately this is due to problems with DHCP registration so one needs
> to look at what might interfere with DHCP. So you disable any
> host-based firewalls, recheck your adapter and firewall configuration,
> maybe your dhcp servers settings if it is local(a router for example),
> and then maybe sniff some packets to see what is or isn't happening.
> Then if your machine is not generating any DHCP requests you know
> where the problem lies. You come to too many conclusions based on
> personal experiences and a *single* symptom with no technical
> knowledge to back up anything. Just like the tech support personnel who
knows nothing, but advises a caller to perform the first fix that
> pops up on their screen when they enter certain keywords into the
> query.....whether it is related to the problem or not. If it works for
> one out of ten callers that is better than having all ten callers
> reinstall their OS.
>
>>
>>
>
> It's called looking at *all* the symptoms not just one. Different
> combinations of symptoms will point someone to the actual problem and
> the correct solution. The fact that you have the same issue happening
> to you "on a few occasions" should tell you that some setting you are
> changing or some software you are installing is causing you grief. So
> the next time it happens think about what you recently did and you
> will know what is causing your particular problem and the various
> symptoms that make it different from the vast number of other problems
> which cause DHCP functionality to break on a machine.
>> Like I said, you come up with a better solution or workaround, do let
>> me know about it.
>
>

It had nothing to do with the router, FW or anything of that nature, when
I hosed the TCP/IP stack on the Win 2K Pro and and Server O/S and neither
machine would release the TCP/IP, and it only happened twice. It had to
do with me switching back and forth between the NETBEUI and NETBIOS on a
those occasions, without uninstalling one of the protocols before
installing the other one when trying to get WEP with the wireless Linksys
card and the wired cards on the network to communicate so that the
machines could do File Sharing. I know what happened here and I have not
repeated the mistake.

And secondly, you were not here as I was trying to get the card to stay
connected wirelessly when I switched to XP Pro. The TCP/IP stack became
hosed a couple of times as I finally realized that the driver XP was
choosing was giving problems along with a couple of other factors, such
as using that Network Wizard. So I went out to the Linksys site and got
the driver for the card and moved on. But first, I had to fix the TCP/IP
Stack on the machine.

You may want to sit there and try to trouble shoot some problem to Hell
and back. But I am not going to take that approach at 2:00 am on a Sunday
morning after loading software on a machine throughout the day - all damn
day long and the second time when I said to myself "You fucked that up
didn't you'. At that point, I knew what was happening and started to
correct things. And I have not encountered any problems since that point.

Thirdly, I didn't advise anybody to do anything with the original post. I
gave my experiences with the problems and how I came around them, which
seems to happen to people when doing anything wireless.

On each occasion I have had problems in this area, I realized my mistakes
in the areas and made the corrections so that it wouldn't happen again.

If I have saved a couple people some time and effort with the post, then
I am glad I made the post. And you can bet that people are coming down
the same path I have come down.
  
You jump in the damn pool and try to figure it out and learn and when you
do it's the best feeling in the world.

That's all anybody is doing out here is trying to get the *** to work
and pass some info that may help someone else who may be coming down the
same path.

Sometimes, I notice that you get too damn technical with this stuff,
instead of bim, bam and boom here is the out.

Duane :)