Here's my current situation.
About 18 months ago, my work supplied me with a Linksys BEFSX41 Router for security when working from home. I got that setup and working fine and was able to connect two PCs at home and share files across them as well as getting VPN going.
A co-worker had showed me how to setup Remote Desktop from work to connect to my home computer (using dyn-ip.org) but after doing everything he said I was never able to get it to work.
4 months ago I got my wife a laptop. I went out and bought a Linksys WRT54G Router and replaced the BEFSX41 with it. My existing home network was fine, but I was unable to get filesharing going between the two computers. With all firewalls turned off I was able at the following state: Neither computer could see each other in the workgroup The LAN PC could ping the laptop The laptop could not ping the LAN PC Using the IP address I could browse the laptops files The WRT54G has a diagnostic Ping function. From it I could ping the laptop, the router itself but could not ping the PC.When I physically hooked the laptop up to the Router everything was fine. The laptop showed in the workgroup and file sharing worked great. Because of this I had the idea of putting the BEFSX41 back as my main Router, turn the WRT54G into a wireless access point and everything would be good to go.
So I hooked it up that way. Initially I had the Wireless Router connected via the WAN port but realized that I needed to connect it to one of the LAN ports. With that figured out I was in business.
Everything was working great, except for the fact that file sharing still didn't work. I was basically at the same point I was above except that on occasion the LAN PC would realize that the wireless PC was in the workgroup. I can ping the laptop fine, but not the other way around. While playing with the wireless routers, ping tool I had it set to continuously ping my PC. During this time I happened to VPN to work to check my e-mail and noticed that for that time period, the router was able to ping the PC. I'm not sure if that actually means anything though.
My setup is as follows: BEFSX41 - 192.168.1.1 WRT54G - 192.168.1.2 PC - 192.168.1.100 Laptop - 192.168.1.101
The only firewall enabled on any of the routers is on the wired router. I tried disabling it, but it didn't change anything either. Besides for all intents and purposes the Wireless router and laptop are now on the LAN side of things.
I have no idea what else to try. I'm hoping somebody can give me a suggestion or sees some obvious error. It's almost as if my PC has some kind of firewall setup on it (other than the disabled Windows firewall) but I don't have any idea where something like that could have come from. Besides I can ping the PC just fine if I physically plug the laptop into the wired router (I haven't tried doing the same thing on the wireless Router).
Please if you have any ideas let me know. I don't know what else to do.
Thanks