Noggin' scratcher

I got a noggin' scratcher for ya. I use a router on a small network i have in my home to connect a few comps in diff rooms. Now, recently a rat chewed through the line that connects this particular box to the network, and because it was so close to the center of it, I just spliced the line back together w/ some electrical tape, and so far it works pretty well. Now...when i shut down my machine and reboot (i have both linux and xp on this machine, so i know its not w/ just one o/s) the network doesn't want to work. When I'm in XP, i run the little repair operation, it says the IP address part of the repair process could not be complete...yet i'm recieving bytes of data...verrrrry little however (according to XP :\).NOW...when i turn on one of the other boxes, and then run the repair process, it works fine, or if i reboot, and one of the other machines is one, nothing goes wrong, works perfectly...and the machine i use in particular has a BIOS password on it, and it never completely boots up, just goes to the BIOS password prompt. Now, I know replacing the cord would fix it guys...but i'm just curious as to how it makes any difference as to if another comp, that's using the same router would have any affect on a line that in no way corresponds with it, other than being connectd 2 the same router. Forgive me if i didn't explain it clear enough...but anyone w/ networking knowledge (which i obviously don't have) plz help me out?

Network/Internet data is sent in packets of some size determined by your computer and the server. In other words, you recieve blocks of data at a time (7kb blocks for me). Now, if one of those packets is screwed up, interesting things happen. Obviously, there's a good chance you lose or corrupt data as it moves through your cord. That explains why XP is screwy. Now then, most routers will only draw as much electricity as they need. If only one computer is talking to it, it won't draw as much power. But, if it thinks another computer is connected or trying to connect, it will draw more power. It's a long shot, but I think when you have both computers on and only one really connected you get a better data transfer on the wire, and don't lose any packet information. I'm not completely sure without getting the probes on the router, but in theory it could happen.

aut0psy:

From what I'm hearing, it's sounds to me like there might be some energy moving through the wire but not enough to allow a "true" connection. How bytes or "packets", move from the NIC to NIC is such that if a "packet" gets corrupt (bad line ect.) the NIC automatically sends it back to the router for retransmission. But, it sounds like you just got some crazy packet loss on that particualar line. So...to answer your question, No, a computer on the same network as the faulty line would not be effected. The only thing that might happen is that, if you had file sharing enabled(or a mapped network drive), it would not be able to map to it. Hope this helps.

Sandman

Thx guys, I was suspecting that i was getting corrupted data due to the line being spliced n' all, and it was giving me a lil' static on the line, but what you guys told me about the power drawing from the router, that really explains it a lil' better 4 me. But, one thing that I don't fully understand is that it never did this until the line had been repaired, and that I had rebooted four or five times. AFTER i had used a crummy cat3 line that i have as kind of like an emergency back up. Thx again.