Home network

How would I set up a home network between my regular computer and my laptop. And want to link them together so both can have internet access. Individually.

I use a home ethernet gateway. Mine's old, so it ain't wireless, but nowadays you can use a wireless gateway or router. In my case, my DSL line comes in from the phone and goes into the gateway, then I hook up my computers to the gateway and they each have their own internet access. Mine's nice because I can control usability for each computer's access to the web on my home network. For example, I can shut down my son's internet connection when I go to bed. That way I know (or at least hope) he can't be surfing porn or MSNing his buddies in the middle of the night...

Cable or DSL modem for broadband access, network interface cards on both computers, the desktop generally will have a wired network card, laptop may have both wired RJ45 and a wireless, next is an 'internet router, made by dlink, netgear, smc, linksys. They come as just wired [generally 5 ports, 1 for the modem, WAN, to plug into and 4 for pc's, LAN] or as wired and wireless. The wired/wireless are the better way to go, it will only be a matter of time till wireless is built into desktop motherboards. Personally I prefer the SMC7004 or SMC7008abr's because they have a built in printserver that you can plug a parrellel printer into and use it for all printing. You need to find out what hardware you have to determine what you need.

Dont mean to hijack but since were sorta on the subject. I tried to set up a wireless router in my house but it would ALWAYS shut itself off after a little while. sometimes it would be longer than other times but it would never fail. the only way to get the internet back was to reset the router....any ideas?

87CherokeeChief said:

Dont mean to hijack but since were sorta on the subject. I tried to set up a wireless router in my house but it would ALWAYS shut itself off after a little while. sometimes it would be longer than other times but it would never fail. the only way to get the internet back was to reset the router....any ideas?

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return it?

what brand?

87CherokeeChief said:

Dont mean to hijack but since were sorta on the subject. I tried to set up a wireless router in my house but it would ALWAYS shut itself off after a little while. sometimes it would be longer than other times but it would never fail. the only way to get the internet back was to reset the router....any ideas?

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It is timing out, there is usually a setting in the interface, on the smc's I set the timeout for -0- which in their world means never. There is also an option to reconnect in there somewhere. The modem can do it too, I own my motorola surfboard so thats all I have ever used myself, I see this problem alot on the scientific atlantas and the only brand router that will keep alive on them is one of the netgears, ISP's that are running max IP's on the segment will sometime enforce the timeouts. I have seti running on a bunch of my systems so I have constant traffic up and down.

RichP said:

I have seti running on a bunch of my systems so I have constant traffic up and down.

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You run that too? Let me know if you find anything! :laugh3:

87CherokeeChief said:

Dont mean to hijack but since were sorta on the subject. I tried to set up a wireless router in my house but it would ALWAYS shut itself off after a little while. sometimes it would be longer than other times but it would never fail. the only way to get the internet back was to reset the router....any ideas?

Click to expand...

Mine was doing that too. Sometimes the router would reconnect after the Road Runner went down, sometimes it wouldn't. A visit from Time Warner confirmed my suspicions...there was 3 splitters in the demarc box before it even got to the splitter inside my house. We removed those, and all the extra coax, and haven't had a problem since.

For those of you interested in home networking here is a good site for a quick tutuorial.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/home-network.htm

If you don't need any fancy features, added security, etc., a plain old dumb ethernet hub works. I have a Netgear hub that allows 3 computers to share my DSL box and a printer (files too if I wanted, but I don't enable any file sharing on the computers). Simple plug and play.

Matthew Currie said:

If you don't need any fancy features, added security, etc., a plain old dumb ethernet hub works. I have a Netgear hub that allows 3 computers to share my DSL box and a printer (files too if I wanted, but I don't enable any file sharing on the computers). Simple plug and play.

Click to expand...

I imagine others appreciate being able to see your machines out on the network too
Networking Rule #1 HUBS are BAD, Switches are GOOD.
While DSL is not a shared architecture like cable various freely available network utilities that come standard on server2003 and from sourceforge can scan a DSLAM in about 4 minutes.