My Network Places hangs

Also,

When the computer freezes upon clicking "entire network,"
one of the programs in the system tray always disappears
(the scanner).

manufacturer's diagnostics - passed all. That means you
had the diagnostics working on two separate computers
exchanging massive data blocks repeatedly? Many forget to do
this test that has so often found intermittent hardware -
including NIC or cables routed where they had problems.

Often such problems go completely undetected using Windows
because ethernet is so fault tolerant.

If network operation causes a scanner (on same computer) to
disappear, well that is often an indication of a hardware
conflict that should be identified by Device Manager.

BTW, when the network driver cannot get responses, it
sometimes takes minutes. This would appear to be a computer
lockup but it really the fault tolerance of Windows trying to
beat an NIC intermittent into working. Pressing Cntrl-Alt-Del
demonstrates the computer is still working - only still
waiting for the network that is suffering from an intermittent
only detectable by the 'two computers not running Windows and
exchanging data' optional test.

Rundll is a program often used to execute *.exe programs.
Also a favorite way of running viruses and other malware.
Being as this is ME, then even a poorly written program can
hang the OS - part of 95/98/ME weaknesses due to its
'foundation' in DOS. I can appreciate that ME makes it nearly
impossible to find what causes processes to load. It might be
a good time to play games of speculation - to learn what
program is being loaded (maybe in the Registry) and that
requires Rundll. That program would cause a shutdown problem
and may also be a factor in your networking problems.

Before 98 was released, I had quit on that variant of
Windows and gone right to NT - for so many reasons. Problems
such as yours were so easy to diagnosis in NT. 95/98/ME
starves the diagnostic human for information making analysis
so difficult.

Another important source of information may be ipconfig - or
whatever it is called in 95/98/ME. Basically observe what
network ports are being accessed. In one 95/98/ME system,
significant problems were traced to a defective printer driver
that also used and left hanging the rundll process. In
another, was the use of an Intel networking device called
something like Intel Everywhere. Any misbehavior caused major
problems for ME.

Which then begs a new hardware question - is your network is
a dedicated NIC and not using USB? The scanner uses what -
USB?

Again, because it is so important and because others who
said they ran this diagnostic did not execute this option.
Run the comprehensive diagnostic on two machines so that the
diagnostics on both machines exchange data and report how many
packets got lost. The basic NIC diagnostic only talks to the
NIC computer. You must talk to the NIC computer and have that
NIC computer exchange massive data with another computer's NIC
computer. Many forget to enable this option that finds
intermittent problems.

MBD wrote:
At the risk of another lecture...

Mfg. diagnostics - passed all.
The NIC, router, and cables are eliminated because I
replaced all of them.
The device manager states everything is ok and working
properly.

I have renamed the workgroup and the computers. The other
2 machines show the offending ME computer and reflect the
new name, but when "properties" is chosen, it says it
can't access the computer.

So, the problem remains: the ME computer freezes
when "Entire Network" is chosen from the My Network
Neighborhood window. A few times it has returned the
message "Cannot access the network."

I have no problems accessing the router or the DSL
internet from any computer, including the ME one.

The computer also has problems shutting down. It often
hangs - when I press ctl-alt-del it shows rundll32 as the
only program remaining.

Thanks for any advice.

MBD

Upgrade to the machine to XP
-----Original Message-----
In article , MBD
says...

I have now ruled out the NIC, router, and cables. I
have
reinstalled TCP/IP and NIC drivers. I've tried every
combination of WINS resolution, browse master, file
and
print sharing, etc. I have renamed the workgroup and
machines.

Don't even mess with the WINS Resolution stuff; it isn't
necessary outside
of a WinNT server/client network. In the standard
Windows peer-to-peer
network, it breaks things when activated.

In a pure TCP/IP LAN, you don't need to mess with much.
Your adapter should
have the TCP/IP protocol bound to it. Otherwise nothing
will work.

Your TCP/IP protocol only needs a few configured
settings. Bindings,
Advanced, NetBIOS, and WINS Configuration tabs should be
left to the
defaults.

The remaining tabs depend upon your network method of
assigning IP
addresses.

The "bad" computer is not shutting down correctly (it
freezes and I have to shut it off manually), and it
sometimes doesn't boot up. I'm wondering if it is:
1. The motherboard going bad (there was a lightning
strike)
2. A corrupt Windows ME file
3. A bad video card or driver

Okay, back to the beginning. You stated:

I have a 3 PC network (ME, XP, XP) with a router.
Everything works fine - all have internet access, each
PC
can ping the others.

That tells me that all NICs, cables, and the router are
working. My example
of a 'partial failure' applied to a specific case where
the test involved
looping back a signal on a test hood; no data cable to a
remote device. The
board in question passed local loopback, but failed on a
cable connection to
a remote device.

You can ping all computers from every other computer,
and you can reache the
Internet from each computer. If your NIC failure mode
was as I described,
you could not have ping, or Internet.

You also stated:

But the XP machines can't see the ME PC anymore (they
used
to).

Something has changed. There are only a few things
necessary for all
computers to see the other computers:

All in the same IP address range; including having the
same netmask. Pinging
doesn't require this; I know, I tested it. I could ping
a 192.168.3.0/24
computer from a 192.168.102.0/24 computer on the same
hub.

All in the same Workgroup. Easy to test. Put one
computer of of the
workgroup, and try finding it. The concept of the
Workgroup was to allow the
topology of connected computers to be changed without
changing the
underlying network topology.

No two computers can have the same name.

Some computer on the LAN must be the 'browse master';
but not all of them
can be. In a mix of WinNT kernel computers (NT/2K/XP)
and Win9x kernel
computers (95/98/Me), the Win9x computers should not be
allowed to be browse
master; nearly as I can tell. I would start by disabling
browse master on
the Windows Me computer, and setting to 'automatic' on
the Windows XP
computers. If necessary, I would calculate which Windows
XP computer is on
the most, and only enable it for that computer; at least
for long enough to
see if that helped matters.

The Windows Me computer doesn't need to be the browse
master. If it is the
only one on, there will be nothing to browse. If any of
the Windows XP
computers comes up, and has the browse master set
to 'automatic', it should
be become the browse master.

Try this:

Identify the components in the list for each computer on
your network. Just
a simple list will do; like this (my two computers as an
example):

Megumi:

Client for Microsoft Networks
Dial-up Adapter
HP EN1207D-TX PCI 10/100 Fast Ethernet Adapter
LapLink USB Network CAble
TCP/IP - Dial-Up Adapter
TCP/IP - HP EN1207D-TX PCI 10/100 Fast Ethernet Adapter
TCP/IP - LapLink USB Network CAble
USB-USB Network Bridge - HP EN1207D-TX PCI 10/100 Fast
Ethernet Adapter
USB-USB Network Bridge - LapLink USB Network CAble
File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks

Naomi:

Client for Microsoft Networks
Dial-up Adapter
HP EN1207D-TX PCI 10/100 Fast Ethernet Adapter
TCP/IP - Dial-Up Adapter
TCP/IP - HP EN1207D-TX PCI 10/100 Fast Ethernet Adapter
File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks

Post that (I used the actual NetBIOS names of the
computers, but you can
supply a generic name, if you wish, and you can relate
the next step
correctly to the actual computers, when I submit it),
and I will take it to
the next step.

Don't worry about what the stuff means, don't worry
about revealing any
"national secrets"; your adapters are not unique. I will
attempt to prune
the lists down to what we are really concerned with when
I see them.

Hint: There is only one 'hardware' adapter in each of my
lists I would look
at (the 'hardware' adapter is the one with the icon of a
printed circuit
assembly (PCA); in Megumi, only two of the three are
physical PCAs.)

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint
.