A newbie and a network..... That spells trouble!!

[brewerbob]

Hello All,
Please don't flame me for asking stupid questions...Here goes...
I am building a new computer and giving the old one to the wife and kids. I'm thinking of switching to a cable modem as well. The question is: How do I get both computers on the internet at the same time without having to pay the cable company extra $$$ every month?

Bear in mind I know little about the internal working of a computer and even less about networking. I'm not going to use anything SCSI (I've heard scsi can be difficult to set up and maintain). The computers will be in different rooms but within about 30ft of cable from each other. They may be running different OS' (Win95 and Win98SE or maybe 2K). I don't think I'm going to do any file swapping from one machine to the other but can't rule it out either. I don't know anything about routers or NICs so use simple words (no aronymns) and keep the numbers to a minimum.

Thanx in advance

 

[Russ]

Geez, man, this stuff is so simple you must be a moron. HeHe. Just kidding!

There are a couple of ways to approach it. I'll give you the least expensive first:

Setup the 98SE (or 2K) machine as the the one that the cable modem will be plugged in to. Cable modem plugs in to a NIC (network adapter). Then, add a second NIC to that machine, and one NIC to the other machine. Run a crossover cable between the two and use the ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) that's built in to 98SE.

This means that the cablemodemefied machine will act as the gateway - or server, and the second machine will only have web access when the first is up and running.

The other, more expensive, alternative is to buy one of the many DSL/Cable modem router/switches on the market. You'd plug the cable modem in to it, and the machines in to it. Then, even if one is down, the other is still on the web.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Mean MrMustard]

An NIC is a Network Interface Card. If you upgrade your Win95 computer to Win98SE you can run ICS (Internet connection Sharing). To do so you would have to install a NIC in each computer. This would make the computer that is physical connected to cable modem have 2 NICs...one connected to the modem and one connected to the other computer, which would the client computer. The cable you run between the computers would be Cat 5 "crossover" cable.

Once everything is physically connected, assuming the internet connection is working properly on the 1st machine, you need to install TCP/IP on the client machine. Assign the machine an IP of 192.168.0.2 or 192.168.0.3 etc. Then ping the other computer on each machine and once that is successful run ICS on both PC's.

Personally I haven't been successful in using ICS. I just bought a switched router it took about 5 minutes to install.

 

[ebgb]

I second the router. You don't have to run both boxes to have either one on the net. All at no extra cost to your ISP.

 

[chemwiz]

3rd the router! You can find them on the Hot Deals forum for under $100 with a 4 port switch and print server. Even if you've never networked anything before, you can have one of these running in under an hour. If you have problems, you already know where to post for help!

 

[brewerbob]

Ok, that's 3 votes for a router. The next question is: what's a router? Is it just a simple switch or more than that? What makes a router good, bad or indifferent? What are all of these "ping" problems people are posting? Aren't "pings" something you get from sonar?!

 

[Dundain]

I'll explain this in terms that it was explained to me (And I know its probably not 100% accurate, but Im a newbe too so... )

Anyways, a router is basicly mini-computer that takes information from your cable/DSL modem, then decides if its valid, and then forwards it through a switch/hub to the computer on the network that requires that information.

A ping is a little packet of information your computer will send to a server to see how quickly it responds. One reason that people might be having problems with it, is because the router can send the information out correctly, but if the packet doesnt contain data of which computer it originated from, then the router wont know which computer to send it to...I think thtas basicly it

 

[Angst]

Here's another vote for the router...I would recommend the SMC barricade. Comes with 4 ports and a serial port and printer port (with the built in print server, one computer can print to a printer that's not even connected to it).

 

[brewerbob]

Thanx, any good sources?

 

[Hoober]

There are a number of magazines out there that do reviews of routers/switches/hubs. If you don't want to pay the cable company extra money, you're going to need a router. I'd recommend one with a built in switch (that controls the speed of the data traveling from computer to computer and from the computer to an outside server, ie the internet). Check here for some good articles on routers.

I'm still looking for an article that really does a good job of explaining all of this to somebody... but I haven't found a decent one yet. Hope this helps.