connect to internet via ethernet and wifi but to network only on wifi

Hello. I have three Dell XPS PCs connected via a Verizon Actiontec router to each other and to the internet, all running Windows 10 (two preinstalled, one upgraded from Windows 7). All connect fine to the internet via Ethernet and wifi, but they can only see/connect to each other via wifi. They cannot see each other via Ethernet; instead I have to turn wifi on for each of them to see/access each other. Not exactly sure when this started, but it wasn’t always like this (some windows update maybe?) I haven’t found my particular problem in searching forums, and there are so many options on what to try to fix other network issues, I’m not sure where to start.

If it’s a hardware issue, I would think it would be with the router, as it’s unlikely the hardware would fail on all three PCs. But since I can connect to the internet via both Ethernet and wifi, I think it’s unlikely a router problem. I have Norton 360 running on all the PCs, but I’ve tried disabling the firewalls, adding Network Trust and Device Trust, and the problem still exists, and again, all works fine over wifi. Could be a network driver problem, but I’ve tried uninstalling and letting windows reinstall the driver, and that hasn’t helped.

So some other setting that got messed up on all three computers at some point? Renaming the workgroup and/or PCs? An ipv6 issue? Any ideas on where to start??

Thanks for your help.

Welcome to the forum. Can you ping the PCs via name and IP from another one are they all on the same workgroup

Samuria said:

Welcome to the forum. Can you ping the PCs via name and IP from another one are they all on the same workgroup

Thank you, and sorry for the delayed response. I needed to wait until everyone was off their PCs to confirm. On Ethernet only, I can not ping by ip address or computer name, on wifi I can ping by both. They are all on the same workgroup, using the default name, WORKGROUP . Something else that may or may not be relevant, when I look at my router control panel, it shows the ip addresses of the problem computers connected via ethernet, but the computer names are not the actual computer names, instead they're listed as 'new-host-2' and 'new-host-3'. Relevant? Again thanks for your help.

Are all the PC's running NetBIOS if there not you won't see names

Samuria said:

Are all the PC's running NetBIOS if there not you won't see names

Under the WINS tab of Advanced TCP/IP settings both computers were set to 'Default: Use NetBIOS setting from the DHCP server.' I changed that to the second button 'Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP'. Not sure if that needed to be done, but then ran nbtstat -a to confirm, and yes, they are all running netbios. Still couldn't ping the other computers with wifi turned off, but could only try once before the employees needed to use their PCs, and I had to turn wifi back on again. Should it have been instant? or should I have waited a bit, or rebooted? Thanks again for your help.