Wireless client won't pick up a DHCP lease

[Jock in a Frock]

Here's the setup:

Tiscali ADSL into a 3Com OfficeConnect wireless router.
1 desktop PC connected on 100Mb Ethernet works fine.
1 laptop PC (Dell D600) picks up a DHCP lease with built-in Wlan card, works fine.
1 desktop PC (self built Asus A8N-E AMD A64 +3700, 1GB Ram) with a Belkin F5D-7000 802.11g wireless card will not pick up a DHCP lease.

The machine connects fine (with an SMC antenna) to the router when I give it a static IP address. Connection and throughput are stable.

This problem happens whether I'm using the Belkin config software or Windows WZC service. I have the latest driver for the Belkin card, and the latest firmware for the 3Com router.

I'm sure the router is fine because my laptop picks up a DHCP lease first time every time.

The Belkin card worked in another machine when I had a Netgear 802.11b router, so I don't suspect it's faulty (especially since it carries traffic & connects to the router okay.)

I'm going to try tracing the traffic with Ethereal to see if I can pick up the DHCP Request / Offer / Confirm packets, and will post the results.

Any ideas?

Jock in a Frock.

[Greenstead]

The only thing that jumps to mind is the possibility that the router believes it already has an IP address allocated to the mac of the 11g card. A hard reset on the router may be worth trying to clear down its internal tables.

[Jock in a Frock]

Nope, the router has had a firmware update and a factory reset folowwed by a full reconfiguration. The DHCP table in the router has not leased an address out for the MAC of the wireless card.

I haven't had a chance to try a network trace yet.

[Jock in a Frock]

Fixed it!

DHCP client and DNS client services were not running.

Start / Run / Services.msc / DHCP Client / Startup Type = Automatic / Start

Start / Run / Services.msc / DNS Client / Startup Type = Automatic / Start

Now the PC DHCP's and DNS's like it should.

I now remember turning these off before this PC was networked. I like to keep running services to a minimum to improve gaming performance, but it's cost me a ton of time trying to troubleshoot this problem. No-one to blame but myself, but hopefully this thread will help anyone else who comes up against the same problem.

Jock in a Frock