Topic: Bizarre DHCP Issues with Win98

[KillingJoke]

I have a mixture of Win98 and XP Clients accessing my PDC SME box.

For the majority all is fine working with DHCP.  However I have 2 Win98SE clients that will only work with a static IP and not DHCP.  Meanwhile x3 on WIn98SE work fine.  Configurations being the same.

Anyone have any clues as to why this should be so ?

cheers
Mark

[irian]

Check all your IP settings for the W98.
Including DNS and gateway configuration.
And delete anything that you find there.

Maybe remove and reinstall the networkcard/drivers.
Are there any new nic-drivers?
Have W98 overwrite the existing files when it reinstalls files.

Martijn

[KillingJoke]

thanks for the thoughts but still bizarre.
no new nic's at all. in fact very old and trusted setup.  had been up 180 days + since last reboot.  

The only change was i installed and backed out of squidguard and it seems to have worked the system wel land truly over.  I thought I had cured the system of all ills but I could not see how it would affect DHCP.

So anyway I did try as you suggested - re-installed TCP/IP drivers.  Worked for 5 mins on DHCP then failed, i.e. could no longer see the file server, on reboot - wrong IP address, no login no shares etc etc.

Interestingly I also had the server lose it's eth0 settings a number of times and had to restart networking each time.

Meanwhile all are working fine on static IP's.
I just cannot understand why DHCP fails.

[dasx]

When you reinstalled the network for win 98 did you do remove winsock from the registry before reinstalling this is a well known problem with win 98 there are many articles on it.

[KillingJoke]

hmm probably didn't, but then never had an issue until now.

Secondly even my XP and Ubuntu boxen are affected in the same way.  On all I have had to define static IP's.  Cannot get DHCP to provide addys properly even though the service is running.

Which leads me to think there is something missing.
The usual story is that it is basic.  But for the life of me cannot see what it is.  What was particualry wierd is that a PC would on TCP driver re-install would get a DHCP addy but then lose network connectivity a few minutes later.  Once lost never regained unless static IP put back in place.

I am begining to think a format and a re-install will be in order.

[irian]

Are you by any chance running another DHCP server?
On the same network with the same config?

Just thinking 'out loud' here.

Martijn

[KillingJoke]

sure.  Did think that myself, but my other server does not even have the dhcp service installed (that I can see).

My router is NOT acting as a DHCP server.
When trying to run the Win32 PC's all default to the standard assign an IP default IP addy (if you know what I mean).  Therefore at present I am presuming no other server is present.

Still stumped.  Though I was out on site working all day yesterday so no further investigation was possible.  Will see if I can have another go at it today.