LAN lost, but can ping
 

Need help in getting home LAN that connects to Internet up
and going again.
Friend in Cal., lost network after teenager did something
to system.
Poor lady has 10 children. Which is enough. Not much
money, so having someone come out to work on it is
financially difficult. She also has inoperable brain
cancer, so stress is really bad. She needs her
communications back

I'm an MCSE (NT) I know a bit but without seeing what's
going on it's hard to diagnosis the network issue. --
Trying to help her on the phone, Utah to Cal is
difficult. She doesn't understand drivers or how to
install them, X cables, straight cables, know what kind of
LAN cards she has, PCI, ISA, switches, gateways, routers.
She is though pretty smart and willing to try whatever I
tell her.

From what I understand, here is the setup:
Home LAN of two Win98 machines, with modems, connected by
cable to a Soho 8 port switch (unknown if it uses
crossover or if it is pingable.or addressable), with one
computer acting as a gateway, connected by modem to
Earthlink, both computers and a printer plugged into the
switch by Ethernet & CAT5.

All used to work; now she can't reach anything from the
2nd computer. There is no network connectivity through
windows to the gateway computer or to the printer. But
the when she connects the cables to the ports, the lights
on the switch light, showing the switch is seeing the
hardware?

Connecting each computer directly to Earthlink, through
the modem, works. IE/OE both funciton, through direct
connect. I had her put things back like they were and do
a 127.0.0.1 ping on each machine. Loop back test worked,
so I assume LAN cards & drivers are ok?

Then I had her ping each computer's IP address and she
said she got a response. [Not sure if this is true or not-
she was upset.]

If it is true, then that indicates to me that it is a
Windows networking problem?

Next thought is to have her uninstall/reinstall MS Client
for Windows, File and Print sharing; TCP/IP, make sure
the computers are on either the same workgroup or set for
peer-to-peer.

(will having her uninstall the MS Client, File & Print
Sharing; & TCP/IP mess up the gateway computer's ability
to see the printer? Because that she says, is working.
If she has to re-install the printer driver again, she
doesn't know what I'm talking about or where it is.)

More ideas please?


Problem 2) I thought if there is a cable problem or
crossover problem with the switch, that would show up when
she tries to ping other computer. But she says she can.
And as I mentioned, the switch's ports light when a system
is plugged in. She may be too upset though to know for
sure if pinging is getting through, so for second ideas,
lets assume that she can't ping the other systems.

If that's the case how to proceed? Same as above? I
don't even know how to test cable.

She does have another LAN card, thinks it fits the slot,
although she said it doesn't look same, so don't know if
she's trying to fit an ISA card into PCI slot or
visa/versa, but she doesn't have the driver for it
anyway. However, I would imagine Win98's generic would
take care of that.

Please concentrate on scenario 1, first. Then need
ideas on the 2nd scenario, in case the systems can't ping
one another.
Uninstall/reinstall the MS net client & tcp/ip?
I don't want though for her to loose the connectivity the
main computer has to the printer.
Which doesn't make sense either. How can that system see
the printer but not the other machine? DHCP problem? I
have no clue how or from where the 2nd system is getting
it's address.

Help please?

Thanks,
Bob