XP Pro Networking issue

[Front242]

First off, I am well expirienced @ 2000 Pro but have minimal exp with XP.

We have a small network consisting of xp, xp pro, 98 and 95. The pro's started to loose connectivity to the network for some unknown reason (we figure some student started to mess with them). We rebult ip addresses re-setup the shares then attempted to connect with no luck. We then rebult the workgroup and renamed it to MShome, at which time it built a network bridge that caused problems in itself (would not see the network printer). Removing the bridge caused us to lose the rest of the network though we realocated the ip addresses to the primary network card. Where am I going wrong?

[JohnRoboto]

When I brought my laptop to school, it would keep losing it's wireless network connection about every 5 mins or so. Apparently, there was someone else at school with the computer name of "Laptop" and the network didn't like this. Changing it to something unique fixed this problem.

[DVNT1]

Can you be more specific about "loose connectivity to the network "? Example: you can not get a valid IP address or you can ping computers but not access Shares.

[Front242]

Our ip adds are manual and yes, though I am able to ping I cannot see other computers on the network. Shares will probably be another issue when I can finally see them.

[Front242]

Well we finally worked it out, one of the xp home computers was transmitting a DHCP broadcast and it was screwing up everything else. some of the Pros were even switching to DHCP to accommodate. Weird!