Name resolution and dual NIC's

[Malkosha 0]

I just installed a new Dell Laptop for one of the company exec's. It has an onboard NIC and it worked fine. However, when his Port replicator came in, I installed it and it had its own NIC card. This was no problem for Win2K of course and the card was found a recognized.

 

We use DHCP on our domain, which gives the IP, gateway, DNS servers and WINS. This is an NT4 PDC. The first card had no problem (LAN1 under network/properties)getting a WINS address and therefore had no problems connecting to mapped drives.

 

The second card (in the PR, called LAN2) only gets an IP address and can't resolve names ... no mapped drives etc. When I run IPCONFIG, the 2nd card shows no WINS address. When I try to connect to mapped drives using UNC names, I get the device is in use error.

 

While I would love to just disable one of the cards and let it go (probably the internal one) the user needs it for going to different WAN sites and logging on. Any idea how I can solve this issue? I guess I could give that card a static IP but thats not a popular idea around the shop. Any ideas?

 

THX!!

[AndyFair 0]

Port replicators cause more problems than they solve - to the point that we don't use them in the office any more, and people just use their laptop's screen & keyboard - most decent, large screened laptops are fine for this kind of use.

 

One thing I would try (and I don't know if it will work or not) is to change the network bindings so that the replicator NIC is listed first in all of the bindings. In theory, this means that this will be the first card to do the DHCP broadcast, so it will be the one to receive the IP address etc. from the server.

 

As I said, it's just a hunch, but give it a try.

 

Rgds

AndyF

[ryoko 0]

Interesting, I have used a few different vendor's port replicators and did not experience this behavior with 2000 pro. None of them are Dells though, but here is an idea.

 

Set up 2 profiles, docked and undocked. When docked disable the onboard adaptor. When undocked you should be all set. I'm making the assumption that you have 2 separate nics though. On our IBMs, the port rep has a "pass through" type of nic. If the Dells use the same method, then you will not be able to apply my solution.

 

Have you thought of getting the MAC adresses and having the dhcp server allocate specific adresses based on that? You mentioned static IPs, and a DHCP reservation would accomplish that in a way. I don't see how a static will help you with your problem though.

 

-RY

[clutch 1]

With a static IP, he would also be setting everything else up manually and that would hope to alleviate some of these issues. If he were to reserve them manually on the DHCP server, that still wouldn't help the local situation on the system with certain settings not being received.

 

I like Andy's idea myself, it seems like it would be a good clean fix since it would be first to get all the information (in theory) and be usable by the OS if it's connected. However, if that doesn't work then I know of others that use ryoko's suggestion regularly to address other hardware issues similar to this when using docking stations (monitors, external PCI cards in some stations, etc).

[Malkosha 0]

Thx!! I'll give it a try .... changing the binding order that is. I have an A20P thinkpad that uses a pass through port replicator, which of course causes me no problems at all. I wonder what Dell is thinking sometimes when they do some of the things they do. For instance, they have the classic "IBM nub" for mouse control but also have the touch pad and 2 sets of mouse buttons just underneath it. At first you would think "hey great! I get options here" but in truth, while you can disable either device (but not the buttons), if you choose the nub then its easy to mistakenly hit one of the "mouse buttons" usually at the wrong time.

 

Thx again!