Unable to Ping Local PCs

Trying to get my Mac to play well with my Windoze PCs.

Mac is running OS X 3.9. I went into Network under System Properties and put in the DNS server as 192.168.1.10. I am 100% sure this is my DNS server. It is listed as the DNS server for all the Win PCs. The Mac can see the internet and can "ping google.com" just fine.

I have a Windows 2000 Active Directory Domain and several XP Pro PCs joined to it. My domain is named olympus.local, and the server is named zeus. From any PC I can "ping zeus" and it will return 192.168.1.10 and successfully ping.

I open Terminal, or Network Utility on the Mac and "ping zeus" and get "unknown host zeus".

I rebooted the Mac just in case. I have checked and the DNS setting is still 192.168.1.10. I have put in "olympus" in the Search Domain as well as "olympus.local" and tried to ping. I have tried to ping with Search Domain blank.

I am sure it is probably something simple but can't seem to find it. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Your system does not who zeus is. That is why you are getting an unknown host zeus. You will need to update your hosts table or use the ip address.

How does it know where google.com is? It asks the DNS server and the DNS server tells it. My DNS server knows where Zeus is, so why is it not telling it?

I can only think of two things that it can be. The Mac is not asking my DNS server, even though it is listed in the network settings, or it is asking the server but something is being lost in the communication so the Mac is going to a public DNS server as a backup.

I did find where to manually put in the IP so the Mac can find Zeus now, but that does not really solve the problem. I am unable to get it to join the domain and I am pretty sure it is related to the DNS problem.

What is the name of your domain, because I really don't think you have a DNS server. I can see that you may have a local domain or in PC talk a work group.