If I have 2 machines both on the same switch with static 192.168.10.0/24 addresses I should be able to ping one from another, right? I mean I dont need a gateway..

...Had a really confusing job this morning where everthing is broken.

yeah, should be able to ping it

EDIT/p.s.

http://www.frogsoft.com/pingnet.htm is a really handy little program... pings an entire range of IP addresses, returns host names etc..

assuming your subnet  masks are correct the two ports are probably in different vlans. impossible to say with no more info though !

It was just on a cheapy netgear switch - no vlans involved.

Download this http://www.angryip.org/w/Download

V2.21.  Good we tool.  Scans a range on your network and gives you the host names for any ips it detects.