PowerBook 520 - Can't Get IP Address

[cobalt]

Hello everyone! Cobalt reporting in from the trenches after having been AWOL for awhile... :b&w:

I recently acquired a PowerBook 520 from eBay (around the same time oneboyarmy got his 520c coincidentally) and have been having fun playing Spelunx and downloading other old games, trying to work around the constraint of its 105.1 MB HDD, and basking in its glorious black-and-white imperfect screen :b&w: . It has 12.3 MB of RAM plus Connectix RAM Doubler v2.0.1.

QUESTION:

After messing around with the internet, I am now unable to acquire an IP address! :'( I connect to the internet through what I'm pretty sure is an AAUI-15 to RJ-45 transceiver. I tried two other ones I have (all different brands) but they don't work! Maybe I downloaded too much and the AAUI-15 port broke? I tried messing around with extensions but can't seem to get back online xx(

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

P.S.

I may not reply or be able to do further troubleshooting until the weekend.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

What do you mean "messing around with the Internet" ?

MacTCP or OpenTransport? What version?

DHCP?

 

[cobalt]

I was able to get online successfully, so I have been downloading a lot of files. But then it stopped working one day!

OpenTransport 1.1 I believe. Yes to DHCP.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

And you can still ping and everything (ICMP)? How about EtherTalk? Just to see if it's a TCP issue rather than a hardware issue.

 

[John Hokanson Jr.]

Have you tried hooking it up to your other Mac via a crossover cable? That would rule out a hardware problem.

 

[cobalt]

I won't get to troubleshooting until much later tonight if at all unfortunately, but wanted to ask some clarification on both of your suggestions.

1. Would I be testing to see if I could ping the Powerbook 520 from another machine? And what is ICMP?

2. Would I be able to acquire a private IP address of some sort using EtherTalk or MacTCP? I'm really fuzzy on those concepts so I'm not sure what I would need to do and if I would require another 68k Mac to test those?

3. I don't think I have a crossover cable... but if I try hooking an Ethernet cable of some sort from my Powerbook G4 to the 520, what will happen and what do I need to do? Do I need to create a network or something in OS X to test communication/connectivity with the 520?

Thanks in advance :I

 

[ClassicHasClass]

If the G4's ports are auto-MDX, then you don't need a crossover cable. It won't hurt anything if the port isn't (and an old G4 might not be, I don't remember), but it won't work either. You might try getting a dumb hub to chain them together. I prefer hubs for my internal network infrastructure because they just transmit and don't care about the actual packets.

EtherTalk doesn't use IP (don't confuse it with AFP over TCP: this is straight AppleTalk), which is the advantage here. If EtherTalk works, then the problem is at the TCP/IP level. Make sure your PowerBook can speak original EtherTalk (preferably in OS 9 or lower). You can test this simply by trying to share files. If that works and the computers show up in the Chooser, then you know that the hardware is not to blame.

Otherwise, you can use ICMP (ping and traceroute), which is not TCP, though it is IP. However, this presupposes you have an IP address, so I'd try AppleTalk first. If you give yourself a static IP, try using one of the Mac ping utilities on the 520 to see if you can reach other hosts on the same subnet.

 

[cobalt]

Hello again,

I tried hooking up my PowerBook G4 to the 520 directly with an Ethernet cable, making AppleTalk active and while I didn't have any luck with the Apple branded AAUI-15 to RJ-45 transceiver, I did at least get the status light on the Asante to light up solid green and flicker rapidly at times so maybe the port is working... That's good news at least! To be honest this troubleshooting is going over my head now so I'll try reinstalling the operating system in summer when I have some more time and look into your suggestions more in-depth at that point if a reinstall is a no-go.

Thanks for your assistance ClassicHasClass and John!

 

[cobalt]

Hello again, back from the dead.

Powered up the ol' Mac and behold--the internet works! I guess I must have messed up some extension settings or something but it works now so I'm happy. Had fun playing Flight Simulator 4 and Spelunx tonight :b&w: I tried posting using iCab but besides exercising my patience I was unable to post because the box to type in wasn't there. Oh well. :?:

Thanks again anyways!