Temporarily disable all firewalls as a troubleshooting step. 

 

Steve

I did that last night before powering down the router and all computers and rebooting.  The firewalls are still disabled.  But, it didn't help.  I have checked every network setting I can think of.  I use TrendMicro PCCillin on both computers, which I have also lowered security settings on... to no avail.  I have also updated the firmware for the router, updated the drivers for the wired and wireless cards.   It is very strange to me that this network has worked fine for a year now, and this happened all of a sudden.  Couple that with the fact that the other computers are not having any problems seeing each other as well as using the internet ...the problem must lie with the Insp 6000.

 

Again the Inspiron is using the router for internet connection but cannot see the other computers on the network to share files or folders.  The laptop shows "connected" and "very good" signal strength from the router.

 

NOTE:  Earlier this week the wireless card began showing "radio disabled".  It took me a while to figure out that I had to use the Fn F2 button to resolve this b/c right clicking the enable button would not do it.  I am wondering if my wireless card is systematically self destructing.

If it can connect to the internet, then the network adapter is working fine.  The only thing that can be blocking the local network is a firewall.  If you cannot figure out how to disable the software firewalls as a troubleshooting step, I suggest you uninstall all firewalls until you get this fixed.  Trend Micro's program is antivirus, not a firewall.  Do you have McAfee Security Suite or Norton Internet Security.  These are the usual culprits.  Note that you will be in little danger with firewalls uninstalled as a the router itself is a hardware firewall.

 

Steve

OK... your message was very helpful in that it made me study my TrendMicro Internet Security PcCillin settings rather than fussing over the networking settings. 

 

On the dashboard there is a Network Security button.  I clicked this and it brought up a page w/ 3 buttons, one of which is a Personal Firewall button.  When I clicked on it there was a drop down listing of several network options... one was Home Network and one Wireless Network. 

 

I clicked on "Home Network" then "Edit" which gave me an option box with several tabs.  I clicked first a tab called "Security Level" which I set to "low".  I clicked on a second tab labeled "Network" which had 3 options.  I clicked "Wired or Wireless Local Area Network" which had a "device" drop down box.  After I selected my WLAN 1370 in this list, I clicked a button labeled "Get" which found my Gateway IP address and my MAC address.  After doing this I clicked "Apply" to set these changes.

 

Voila!  I can now see all the computers!

 

Thanks very much for your help.  I tried to be detailed just in case someone else may be having the same problems.

I'm having a similar problem with both wireless machines, one a desktop and one a laptop.  I have the Norton suite of products (Protection Center and Internet Security).  Would anyone have any suggestions for me?

 

Thanks,

Jess

This happened to me recently and I tried everything to do with router, firewall etc. but nothing worked.

 

It the suddenly hit me! I had disabled file and print sharing (to try and speed up boot times) and forget to re-enable it.  All I did was re-enable file and print sharing, rebooted (which I hate doing cos it takes ages to restart - but thats another issue) and viola, problem solved.

 

 

Another possible cause of not seeing machines on a network, a scambled TCP stack, repaired by resetting the TCP/IP stack

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299357

 

 

If it were a "scrambled TCP/IP stack the original poster would not be able to get on the Internet (which requires TCP/IP)!!!

 

Steve