Netbook has lost contact with Homegroup

~Chameleon~

Back again for more techy advice please

I've had more problems this week since delving back into the world of Windoze than over the last several years of being a sole Mac user :rotfl:

Netbook (Samsung NC110P) arrived yesterday so spent the entire day setting it up and configuring it to my needs and all was well. It happily managed to access my entire network consisting of iMacs, MacbookPro, windoze laptop and NAS storage device. It also nicely joined the Homegroup I'd setup on the laptop for file sharing as these two machines will be working closely together so life will be so much easier if they can talk to each other!

Then all of a sudden I lost both wireless connectivity and access to the Homegroup. It took me a while and a lot of hair pulling to backtrack what I'd changed/installed/deleted and the culprit turned out to be the Samsung Easy Settings programme and where I'd switched the power management to Eco friendly settings it very kindly switched off Bluetooth & Wi-Fi for me :wall:

Having solved that I still can't get it to detect Homegroup though. Netbook is Win 7 Starter and laptop is Win 7 Home Premium so I have to set it up on the laptop then ask to join it from netbook, however, netbook is failing to detect it so the "join" button remains greyed out. I've run trouble shooting diagnostics, abandoned and re-set the Homegroup on laptop several times, rebooted router etc and now I'm at a complete loss as to what to try next or what the problem might be.

Any ideas please?

~Chameleon~

Problem solved!!

They were both trying to assign to the same IP address so couldn't see each other. They've now been allocated a fixed IP in my router and issue is resolved.

Im_just_careful

You have found and solved your problem but my observation is that home networks seem most reliable if shared resources have static IP addresses.

I would suggest that your NAS has a static IP address (you may have already done this).

After some messing about, I've found that connecting printers to a NAS so you don't have to turn on a computer to print is very helpful as well.

~Chameleon~

Im_just_careful wrote: »

You have found and solved your problem but my observation is that home networks seem most reliable if shared resources have static IP addresses.

I would suggest that your NAS has a static IP address (you may have already done this).

After some messing about, I've found that connecting printers to a NAS so you don't have to turn on a computer to print is very helpful as well.

Now that's a good idea, although my printer is wireless it does seem to get continually dropped by my router and have to reboot to "see" it again.

Figment

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Now that's a good idea, although my printer is wireless it does seem to get continually dropped by my router and have to reboot to "see" it again.

Wireless printers also work best when they have a static or sticky, IP address

~Chameleon~

Figment wrote: »

Wireless printers also work best when they have a static or sticky, IP address

Yes, it already does, as do all my wireless devices. They were set up some time ago but the laptop and netbook are new additions and it had completely slipped my mind to do this until I encountered the problem with them trying to share the same IP.

~Chameleon~

Oh dear, seems I spoke too soon and the problem has returned so presumably it's an IPconfig problem after all. I'm at a loss now as to what the cause might be.

I'm thinking possibly my router can no longer handle the volume of traffic running through it as it does tend to keep dropping wireless devices from view (still connected to internet, just not each other) when I check the "attached devices" list. Perhaps I'll start a new thread for new router advice

Figment

Did you use static IP addresses outside the DHCP range?

Robisere

Can you upgrade the Firmware for your Router?

Does it have a WPS (Windows Protect Setup) button?

Do all your devices have a "Compatible with Windows7" logo?

If yes to all, you can use Windows Connect Now to connect all your devices.

<Start> - <Windows Help & Support> - (type in) <Windows Connect Now> - this will explain the setup.

Personally, I don't use Home Group, it's a faff. I just setup a Network with WCN.

~Chameleon~

Figment wrote: »

Did you use static IP addresses outside the DHCP range?

No, they're all within the range, typically from 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.16 as I like things to be in order



(yes, I do have OCD )

~Chameleon~

Robisere wrote: »

Can you upgrade the Firmware for your Router?

Haven't checked to see if there's a newer version, but will do.

Does it have a WPS (Windows Protect Setup) button?

Yes, but can't remember what it does

Do all your devices have a "Compatible with Windows7" logo?

Only two of the devices are windoze (the lappy & netbook) and both are new with Win7 installed. But these are the only two I'm trying to connect to Homegroup anyway.

If yes to all, you can use Windows Connect Now to connect all your devices.

<Start> - <Windows Help & Support> - (type in) <Windows Connect Now> - this will explain the setup.

Personally, I don't use Home Group, it's a faff. I just setup a Network with WCN.

Ahhh the netbook only has Windows7 Starter, will that be a problem? As it is, I can only "join" a Homegroup from this one, not actually create one.