I think my switch is preventing me from hosting games

[Goran]

So a while ago out of nowhere my friend and I are no longer able to play Counter-Strike in the same servers. It worked before now it suddenly dosent.

We are trying starcraft right now and we can both see each other in the Blizz channel and when I host a game he can join it. BUT neither of us can start the game because it always says file is being distributed YET it wont let anyone access the file to download it.

I looked at the manual and it has nothing on port forwarding.
Its a Linksys EZXS55W

We both have different ip addresses although the first two decimal places are the same (ex: xxx.xxx.THESE.ARE.DIFFERENT)

Again, everything worked fine and now it dosent. Nothing has been added to it. No new protocols installed or uninstalled and Its a very tiny 5 port switch and it has worked fine up untill now. There was no driver CD to install or anything so I cant do that type in the ip into the browser to access it type of thing.

Can anyone help me? Its quite urgent! If I can somehow totally disable port blocking I would be happy. Thanks to anyone who can help us!

 

[VTOLfreak]

That switch of yours doesn't "block" anything. It moves around packets according to MAC adresses.
That's all it does...Whatever your problem is, the switch is not at fault.
And if it were broke, you wouldn't be able to get on the internet at all.

Your IP's wouldn't happen to start with 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x would they?

 

[Goran]

nope they dont. Thanks for helping but I still dont know why suddenly my friend and I cant play in the same starcraft game or counter-strike server

 

[fredweston]

Windows firewall?

 

[Goran]

Hasent been touched since I turned it off...

 

[fredweston]

What is your switch connected to besides the 2 PCs?

 

[Goran]

Nothing besides the cable modem

 

[r368kevin]

Are the two PC's connecting direct to the switch or is your friend trying to connect over the internet?

Is there a build in firewall on the cable modem? Perhaps its restricting the access.

 

[Goran]

No im pretty sure there is no firewall because it has worked before for about 3 months just fine. I'm not sure how they are connected. I know that when I had to transfer files the PC's couldnt search each other and the only way to do it was to type in the IP of the computer \\IP\shareddocs is that a problem?

 

[fredweston]

I know that when I had to transfer files the PC's couldnt search each other and the only way to do it was to type in the IP of the computer \\IP\shareddocs is that a problem?

What prevents someone else on the Internet from doing the same thing to access your files?

 

[Goran]

Exactly! how do I make it so when I actually search for the computer it comes up so I dont ahve to put in an ip address? Like for example I want to add my other pc to the network I type in \\PC2\shareddocs instead if \\IPADD\shareddocs ??

 

[fredweston]

You can use the hosts file to manually map the computer name to IP.

On a local Windows NT computer, go to the %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc directory and open the Hosts file in Notepad.

On a blank line, type the IP address, followed by at least one space, and then the computer name.

Save the Hosts file.

This will only work until the computer gets a new IP though.