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mrmsr27

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Windows 98 PC will not connect to router or to internet

My home network consists of a Netgear WGR614v4 Wireless Router and A Toshiba PCX2200 cable modem. My is ISP is Cox cable. Setup instructions are for automatic settings using DHCP. On my Network I have a wired Windows XP Pro machine, a wired Linux machine, a wireless Windows XP Pro machine, a wireless Windows XP home laptop, a wireless TIVO, a wired XBox, a VoIP (Vonage) router, and a wired Windows 98 SE machine.

 My problem is the Windows 98 SE machine. I cannot get it to ping the Netgear router or connect to the internet. It always fails when being set up by DHCP. I have changed network cards 4 times. I have even built 2 different PC's with different hardware to try and eliminate a hardware issue. Both Windows 98 SE machines give me identical results. I have tried several different cables and different ports on the router. I have tried connecting it directly to the cable modem using the cable company's setup instructions... still no connection... it defaults to a 169.xxx.xxx.xxx IP. I have connected my XP Pro machine and my Linux machine (seperately) to the same connections and same cables I am having the Windows 98 SE failures on and they connect perfectly. I have tried disabling all security on the Netgear router. I have tried disabling wireless access on the Netgear router. I haved tried removing the Vonage router for the network... still no success. I have tried swapping all cables. I have changed hardware resources to several different configs on the Windows 98 SE PC... still it did not work. I have tried to release or renew using winipconfig. Everything works and sets up by DHCP, except for the 2 Windows 98 SE machines. Both Windows 98 machines have fresh OS installs with no hardware conflicts. I cannot understand why only the Windows 98 SE machines will not work. They will ping 127.0.0.1 just fine. They will not ping ny router or my ISP.  I tried manually setting the IP and the gateway as such: IP Address 192.168.0.11 Subnet 255.255.255.0 Gateway 192.168.0.1 . Even with these settings, I cannot ing 192.168.0.1 . It still defaults to a 169.xxx.xxx.xxx IP. My network settings only include Client for Microsoft networks, my adapter (NE 2000 Compatible), and TCP/IP for the adapter. Thanks in advance.
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Irwin Santos
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mrmsr27

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They are 10BT ISA cards, but I have tried using 2 different 10/100 PCI cards as well. I have also tried connecting directly to the cable modem, which is designed for 10 Base-T, eliminating the network completely. I still can't get an IP assignment by DHCP when going directly to the cable modem??? Thanks for getting this started.
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irwinpks... you got it... at least you put me on the right track. I re-tried one of the previously tried 10/100 PCI cards in a different slot on one of the Windows 98 SE machines and it worked. It still wont work with a 10BT ISA card in it and the PCI card will only work in one particular slot on the motherboard... and I can only get it to work in only one of the Windows 98 SE machines, but I found a way to make it work and that's all I needed. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
cool.. thank you!