I need an answer to this mind boggling riddle!

Today, I went to one of my clients offices, and he has a small networked office. It is one story, about 10 computers linked together via:

-phones ------ computers computers!
-----------approx 20 cables------|-------another router---|--- computers computers!
| ------computers computers!
DSL Att Box -----Router (going into the ceiling)
|
---------------approx 20 cables---------------Same as above...

basically, its a simple dsl line to a router that splits up cables to go through the walls, and back into phones, and one of the cables goes into another small router one one side, and again, the same on the other side.

When checking out what was going on, one of the employees couldn't get online. He had claimed (from the few days he had been there) that he was able to go online before, but that was disproven as he claimed the same thing before I left after he clicked the button "Work offline". lol....

This all started when they wanted to use a printer on the network (on one of the many computers there) to print documents and what not. They couldn't find the MSHOME everyone else was on.

I started testing this all out with a different lan cable. It still showed that it was connected, but no packets sent, but a heck of a lot received.

I tried using the "setup a home or office network" wizard, and was able to connect his computer so that it could see MSHOME and connect to it as well. So I tried to see if the other computers would see it, but no...????

Then I thought that we couldn't go anywhere because we couldn't get online in the first place. So I checked out how the lan was enabled. There was a 1394 connection available as well as the lan. It was not disabled, but it showed itself as alive. The IP address, however, was FAR different from that of the regular offices.

I checked to see if the DNS was giving it a proper IP address, but it showed that there was no DNS. It was getting ridiculous. I asked the guy if he had this type of problem before, and he said yes he did. He had another techie take a look at it, and fixed it in five minutes. Said something about assigning it an IP address.

So I took his words, and manually configured the LAN to use a certain IP address, and also to go through the gateway (from the IP on another computer showing the gateway). It seemed to do... something...

All of a sudden, it started sending and receiving packets just fine! So I went to see if I could go online, but still no luck!

I am able to see only one computer on the network, even though all the others are shared... and I'm not sure how that's possible when I can't even add the printer from the one that I can see. It will say the connection has been lost, but I am still able to actually copy a file from the other desktop onto the computer!

So I can communicate with one computer on MSHOME when all the others are on the same network. The computer even spotted the printer they originally wanted to connect to in the first place, but it doesn't want to connect!

no internet, I can see only one computer on the network for some reason, and I can't even connect to the printer. I've tried obtaining the IP manually, automatically, flushing the dns, re-registering it, releasing the ip address, renewing it... everything i can think of!!!

The most confusing part about it is, when i plugged the computer into my own network at home, it picked up the internet no problem. its not the cable, and its not the port. both can be read by another computer and i even tried the computer on a secondary one. NOTHING

This is the most bewildering thing I've ever come across! I NEED HELP!!!

I will need some info to assist you before i go into extreme detail. What is the IP Scheme there (IE: 192.168.1.---?) and the IP address of the routers. Now I dont see why they would need multiple routers unless they are exceeding 200 clients. But no matter. Also list the specs of the pc your configured with the STATIC ADDRESS (IE: What addresses did you put for IP, GATEWAY, and DNS 1/2) and I will help ya :D

Thanks for the info for now, I'm going to drop by the office either today, or sometime next week since my schedule is booked for the weekend and the rest of the week. But I'll post my findings, and bring back pictures!

Hey, I got some pics from the office. Turns out it's not routers, their hubs! ... I was able to talk to the hub to see how it's configured, but when it asks for user and pass, I'm not sure what the default is. I've tried: Admin, admin, *blank*, Any, Administrator, and administrator, in various orders. I asked the owner of the company if he knew of anyone who may have changed the password, but he doesn't think so. The hubs are called cayman3000. I googled it, but got nothing. Anyone have any ideas? Anyways, heres some pics and a little explanation of how everything goes:


This is the main DSL line in the back.


this seems to be the switch where all the cables are starting to pour out and into the ceiling.


This is where the wires crawl up the wall


Then, about 20-30feet to our left but still facing the same way, the wires come down through the ceiling.
This is about half the wires, and the other half looks the same way on the other side of the room, but that doesn't matter since they are both the same, but the other hub is not on.


This is where the wires coming from the ceiling lead down to: The Hub. It's only an 8-port hub with the brand(?) name on it: Future power. The rest of the wires lead to phones around each office. All 8 ports are used up. One of the wires from the ceiling lead into the "uplink" port on the hub, and the other ports are all leading out to computers around the office. The gateway IP address is 63.204.***.**.

The Computers around the office all are auto-assigned an IP address, but for some reason, the one computer can't seem to obtain an automatic IP address from the... hub I guess? Hmm...

I tried manually setting it to go through the gateway, but it won't even see the internet as I stated before. But for some reason, it see's only ONE other computer (out of about 3-5) on the network and can copy files to and from it, but can't print to it's printer. It says it cannot be found, but it see's it.

Any ideas? And any default cayman3000 hub passwords? =) Thanks!

Have you tried to hard boot the entire system? Turn everything off and unplug the router and modem. Wait one minute then turn the modem on. After waiting a second minute turn the router on. After waiting for one more minute turn all the computers on. This should reset and reassign new LAN IP addresses to each computer and device. Do not worry with the hubs.

I've done this before to a small single router setting, but just fyi and a question: This setup is over 6 years old, and the hubs are extremely outdated. Would doing this have any after effect to the entire system? Say, they have shares setup and printers shared throughout the network. This wouldn't affect them already in place, would it? And this wouldn't also mess with the hubs to not work properly? *just keeping on my toes*

Well, the Cayman 3000 series is a router/modem. The big box next to it looks as if a telephony box. The last picture you have is a hub. Even though the equipment is old, as long as your running 10/100 you should be fine. Might want to get a linksys router to plug your modem into, and let that control routing. One thing you have to remember about hubs though, is that on some hubs, if you have a cable in the uplink port, and a cable in port 8, port 8's connection could have problems. Such as a client I had, they had a netgear 16 port hub, with one uplink port. IF ANY CONNECTION WAS NEXT TO THE UPLINK PORT, it would not work. I would say try taking that one out, and move it to a different port and see if he recieve DHCP. If yes, then there is your problem, get a bigger hub, or even call someone to go put some hard wired connections through the ceilings to wall ports.

At the hub move the non-working computer to a port that is known to work. Eliminate the "Bad wiring" as a potential problem.
On older hubs and router they sometimes came with a MDI\MDIx switch. This was usually on the last port. If it is in the MDIx position you would not get a signal unless you were using a crossover cable. The newer routers, hubs, and switches come with a auto-switch, doing away with the manual setting.

In the example below the button is recessed and the hubs are tied together with the last port on the first hub plugged into the first port on the second hub. Make sure the button is set correctly, if there is one.



While it is not labeled MDI\MDIx the upload\normal button does the same thing. It serve the same function as a crossover cable.

Thanks for more information, but I'm afraid I've already tried both the ideas. I tried multiple ports and from working ports on the computer. I checked the cable by testing it with two other ones that both work normally on other machines.

More ideas?

In the Device Manager how many NICs does it show, 1 or 2?

2, LAN, and 1394.

Just something I noticed, why is the default gateway a public address? If you are using a router it should be something liek 192.168.xxx.xxx to amtch your subnet. THat could explain your issues. Of course I could be off base too.

The reason for the public IP, may be the modem has a built in router (Not uncommon with dsl) and the router is bridged to act as only a switch. That would make the WAN address the Gateway IP address instead of the LAN internal IP (192.168.1.1). This still should not be the case. The built in router should also assign internal LAN addresses (192.168.100.1, or similar).
Have you tried deleting the current LAN settings on that one computer and reinstalling then new?

By resetting, do you mean putting everything back to obtain automatically? Or deleting the LAN connection icon in the network connections entirely? I've tried the auto thing, but not deleting the icon...

Yes, delete the LAN profile in the Network Connection and create it again.

IMO this looks a lot like my wife's office although she's only got 5 computers on a workgroup there.

After much time and sweat I've determined that the easiest thing to do would be to plan and rebuild the network from scratch. It won't cost all that much (just for equipment you figure that you need to update) and would then be updated for the future.

The problem that exists is getting the time to do it when the business is closed - and that's with only 5 computers! Your problem will take a bunch of time, so you may have to hire a consultant/contractor to help with this.

Hmm.. I like both suggestions. I'll go ahead and try deleting the connection and have it try to reconfigure it all on its own. Then I'll try an interesting idea:

Take my wireless router from my home, and try it on his network, by taking the uplink cable and putting it into the internet port on my router. Then I'll see if I can get the computer and others that are and aren't working, to get an IP and attach to the network.

If this works, then I'll just suggest to the guy to get a new router.

I'll try to go there sometime this coming week and diagnose it further, and then I'll post my results. Thanks for all the help thus far, and if anyone can think of something between then and now, I'd be happy to hear it!

Thanks again and I'll post my results!