I tried to help someone else the other day on getting Garnet VM to Hotsync from a laptop computer.

It ended up being a total nightmare for the both of us.

The set up I have at home is having an ethernet cable from my home computer in Windows XP connected to my wireless router and then using a fixed IP address like you mentioned. I've never once had a problem this way.

If your laptop is completely wireless, maybe try using an ethernet cable instead.

Also, you might want to double check to see if you have any firewalls active anywhere. Last idea would be to uninstall Garnet VM and reinstall again, I've heard that helps sometimes.

If you catch the solution, could you please post back?