Cannot connect to the internet

[Altuno]

I dont know much about what im talking about so stay with me.

My computer's hard drive recently crashed and i had to basicly restart everything in my computer. My brother recently set up my internet which is a shared connection by mine and his computer. My internet worked fine untill a day or so later i restarted my computer and it hasnt worked since. Ive tried everything from changing my IP address to just waiting. Nothing is working and i am now on holidays. I have no computer with internet and am stressing over this. i need it to work and dont know what to do. My brother and i have different IP addresses so i dont think thats the problem.

I have tried Pinging the default gateway and all packets are not sent. 100% failed.

Please tell me what i can try to get my internet working, i desperately need it.

[homecomputeraid]

Hi Altuno,

You can't assign a random IP address and have things work. Your IP address has to be in the same range as that of your gateway and your brother's computer, but a different host address. The network masks also have to be the same on both computers.

In order for your computer to access the Internet, you must have a default gateway, and a Domain Name System (DNS) server assigned to your network card along with your IP address. These things are normally all taken care of for you by using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to automically assign your IP address and the required information.

What Operating System are you using?

The steps you will go through to do this depend on the Operating System, but you want to enable DHCP on the network card, then check to make sure you obtain an IP address from the DHCP "server" on your network. This could be a router, or your brother's computer if he has Internet Connection Sharing enabled.

To see if you have an IP address after enabling DHCP, go to Start, Run, and type cmd in the "Open" block. Then click "Ok". A command window will open. Type ipconfig /all then hit Enter. You should see an IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway Address, and a lot of other information. Try to ping the default gateway. This assumes you're using Windows XP. The steps will be a little different on Vista.

It should look similar to the following:

C:\>ipconfig /all

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

P:\>c:

C:\>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

		Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : HOST
		Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : yournetwork.com
		Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
		IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
		WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
		DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : yournetwork.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

		Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : yournetwork.com
		Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet
		Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1A-4B-84-DE-51
		Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
		Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
		IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.76
		Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
		Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
		DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.7
		DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.7
											192.168.1.6
		Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.7
		Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, October 02, 2008 8:22:51 A
M
		Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Monday, October 06, 2008 8:22:51 AM

C:\>