My computer refuses to act as a server - PLEASE HELP!!

[Purp]

I noticed quite a while ago that when I try to play client-server games on my home LAN (just two computers), the slower one always has to be the host. This wasn't too much of a problem before, but now I'm trying to write my own programs with TCP/IP connections in them and I can't run servers on my own computer because it refuses to let outside clients connect to it.

It took me a while to work out what was wrong - when I couldn't connect to my server from Shanobi's computer I just assumed that some arsehole had turned my computer off since I left my house, but when I got home it was still on and still serving. Then I tried to connect across my LAN and it wouldn't work, so I tried running the server on the slower computer and connecting from the faster one and it worked perfectly. Does anyone have any idea why my computer refuses to act as a server? Please help!

edit: forgot to mention that I can connect to a server running on my main computer from my main computer, just not from any other, so technically it will act as a server, but won't let clients that aren't running on itself connect to it.

[fraggle]

What is the nature of your home network and how are your computers connected to the Internet?

[Tobester]

use crossover cat5 instead of patch

[Purp]

fraggle said:

What is the nature of your home network and how are your computers connected to the Internet?

My computers are connected with a USB LAN cable - it emulates a proper LAN and makes the computers act like they are connected by LAN cards. And I have a 589kbps connection to the Internet with a USB broadband modem. So in other words, it's probably something to do with my USB ports, but nothing I can find in my computer's BIOS.

Tobester said:

use crossover cat5 instead of patch

What are crossover cat5 and patch?

[Planky]

Cat5 is a grade of network cable (more info here).

Crossover cables allow you to connect two pc's together with having to use a hub/switch. Patch cables need to have a hub/switch inorder to 'talk' with other pc's in the network (also allowing you to have more than 2 computers in the network.

Is it possible the machine that is meant to be the server have any firewall software installed on it? (WinXP has it's own built in firewall, so disable that if your running xp)

[fraggle]

MaTT [TiK] said:

My computers are connected with a USB LAN cable - it emulates a proper LAN and makes the computers act like they are connected by LAN cards. And I have a 589kbps connection to the Internet with a USB broadband modem. So in other words, it's probably something to do with my USB ports, but nothing I can find in my computer's BIOS.

What are crossover cat5 and patch?

What I mean is this: do you have your machines connected in some form of LAN with them accessing the Internet through one of the other machines, using NAT ("Internet Connection Sharing") ? Obviously if this is the case you will only be able to connect from the outside to the machine which is actually connected to the Internet.

Its still not clear how your network is laid out and what you are actually trying to do. A diagram of some kind might be helpful..

[Purp]

No, I have no firewall running because they piss me off, and I'm using Windows 98SE.

Never mind, I've given up trying to run the main server on my computer now - I'll work out what's wrong some other time - I got my dad to run the primary server and Princess Shanobi is running the secondary one.

If you wanna see what I was trying to set up a server for, please visit my site, Lamer Productions, and have a look at my program, Real-Time.

[fraggle]

MaTT [TiK] said:
No, I have no firewall running because they piss me off

A NAT gateway is not a firewall, but it will still stop you from accessing the machines behind it due to the way it works.

Instead of running your own timeservers, why not use NTP, which is a standard network time protocol for which there are hundreds of servers around the world?

[Purp]

Cos I wanted to know if I could write Internet programs and that was my first attempt. Obviously I'd like people to use it, but it's not the end of the world if no-one ever does. If it never does get any other users, I might try and change it to connect to NTP servers instead, and get rid of the Real-Time servers.