Can't connect XP and Win 7 via LAN

Ok, I have a spare laptop I'd like to use for a distributed architecture processing audio plugins for my band during mixdown. I'm trying to connect my Win 7 Pro x64 PC via Gigabit Ethernet to my Win XP Pro SP3 machine.

I tried a cross over cable at first but for some reason it wasn't working. So I tried a direct cable connection. Surprisingly that got the two NIC's to at least act like something was going on. Since I couldn't get it to work, I just went out and got a Gigabit Switch.

Currently my setup is:

Win 7 Pro X64
1 Wireless Card > Wireless Router > Internet

1 Gigabit Ethernet > 1 Gigabit Switch > Laptop

Laptop has an identical setup, but I've disabled the wireless for now.

The wireless connection works fine, but it's only 54 Mbit and I want the full Gigabit.

I set up both computer with static APIPA range IP addresses:
LaptopXP
169.254.0.1
255.255.0.0
(no gateway is used in a LAN like this)

DesktopWin7
169.254.0.2
255.255.0.0
(no gateway is used in a LAN like this)

Both can ping local host 127.0.0.1
Both can ping their local respective IPs.
When pinging from XP to Win 7 the request times out
When pinging from Win 7 to XP it says Destination Host Unreachable

In the Network and Sharing the Local Are Connection says:
Unidentified Network
Public Network

No Network Access
Local Area Network



No matter what I do, I can't get it to change.
I've disabled the firewall completely.
I've removed Bonjour.
I've disabled IPV6
I've tried APIPA
I've tried static addesses in multiple subnet ranges
Both are on the same workgroup and can access each other's shares while using wireless
If I click on the "Unidentified Network" I can't change the name or anything.

Thoughts? Is my NIC bad or am I missing something?

Looks like my suspicions were right. My onboard NIC seems to be bad. Not surprising since I never used it. My wife's laptop will connect just fine and I can ping back and forth. It still shows an unidentified network but I can open the shares up. I couldn't connect to my desktop with either laptop through the switch.

I bought a new NIC but it doesn't have Win 7 drivers. I loaded up 2008 server drivers and it's working intermittently. I can usually ping and the first request will work, then the next two will time out.

Next up is buying a Win 7 compatible NIC.

Still though, anyone know how to force an unidentified network to be identified? Seems silly that we can't tell Windows what it is instead.

It really ought to be able to accept a 169.254.0.x format IP and 255.255.0.0 subnet and call it good. :)

My wife's laptop was able to connect and still considered it an unidentified public network.

No matter I suppose.

Anyone know of a Win 7 x64 compatible Gigabit NIC either PCI or PCIe though? The one I got is working intermittently (the first ping will work but the others bomb out usually) but the drivers are really slowing my system down when I have it enabled. I'm going to have to return it but I don't want to manually go through a bunch of cards to find one that works on my PC.

Yes. It was working using the APIPA range. So 169.254.0.1 and 169.254.0.2 for example.

I'm not trying to get internet access. I already have wireless cards in each PC going to my router for internet access. I'm simply trying to get a gigabit connection between the two pc's using a wire. The goal is to farm out my plugins to render on my spare laptop.

Like I said, I did get it to work with the new card sporadically but the drivers appear to be too flaky to do any good.

So, know a good win 7 x64 gigabit card? preferably pcie?