network activity light stays on

Man, I thought I'd never have to ask a question like this, but alas I do. I have a reasonably reliable home network running a proxy server to share a DSL internet connection between 4 computers. I'll probably learn more reading here on how to make the network run better, but here's my problem now;
One of the computers lost it's 'net connection. I checked all the obvious & what I found was the green 'activity' light on the back was staying on rather than blinking as it usually would. I thought the network adapter was bad, so I popped another in & found it did the same. The computer is running Win98SE & shows no problems with eithre card. Next I am going to try dumb stuff like swapping cables & ports on the network switch. Any good suggestions?
thanks
-chris

1. RE: network activity light stays on
lbyard Jun-17-02 06:13 PM
In response to message 0

>Next I am going to try dumb stuff like swapping cables & ports on the network switch.
Not so dumb... Exactly what I would suggest. "Dumb" (ignorant) would be to start troubleshooting the software before checking the hardware. Larry

2. RE: network activity light stays on
cgranju Jun-17-02 10:00 PM
In response to message 1

swapping the stuff I mentioned made no difference so far. I'm about to isolate the network connection...by that i mean shut down the other workstations. But the question comes up, then, what sort of software problem *could* cause the activity light to be pegged on.
thanks
chris

3. RE: network activity light stays on
lbyard Jun-18-02 01:11 AM
In response to message 2

You will not be done troubleshooting hardware, would you? What would be the next logical thing to do if the cable and port test good on another computer? What does the cable connect to? I would not suggest this course of action if the network adapter LED were not behaving oddly. Larry

4. RE: network activity light stays on
cgranju Jun-18-02 09:18 AM
In response to message 3

Larry,
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying there. However, switching cables, cards, etc. was to no avail. I'm curious what you meant there. I did go through the networking settings & realized that the station was set up to have an IP assigned to it. I changed it to give it an IP & rebooted. That took care of the problem. And who says monkeys can't write Shakespeare?...or fix their one computers?
thanks
Chris

5. RE: network activity light stays on
lbyard Jun-18-02 03:15 PM
In response to message 4

I meant to swap network adapters. Glad you got it fixed. Larry