PCA Forums

I have one computer in my office in my garage. I have Comcast broadband cable internet hooked up.

I am thinking about hooking it up also to another computer in a bedroom on the other side of the house.

Would someone explain to me step by step on how I would do this? I have no experience in networking, I've only used stand alone computers. How much speed am I going to lose by doing this?

Just check http://www.practicallynetworked.com/ , there're plenty of guides to networking and internet sharing.

You should'nt lose much speed at al.. Nothing that you would notice if you get the right equipment, ie...switch instead of hubs. It's fairly easy to set up a home network. It just takes a little time and money.

OK guys, that link just confused the hell out of me. Call me stupid or just call me Mike. hame

Most of that stuff was written in 1998 or so. It talks about installing 2 NIC cards in one of the computers. Is this necessary?

All I want to do is have both computers share one internet cable connection.

Is Networking the same as sharing one internet connection? I don't really need the computers to be networked to each other, i.e. sharing files and stuff. I just want to be able to have them both use cable internet using just my one cable modem without having to pay for two separate cable internet bills.

Both computers have XP Pro and both have built in cable capability on the motherboard.


I was thinking it was going to be something like this:

Cable going to one cable modem. From there going to a Router (splitter). From there going out to other computers.

your last plan will pretty much do it - one cable modem, one router, two nics, and some cables -

yep, you got it right. that should about do it... the 2 nics in one PC is to turn it into a router/firewall.. if you get a decent linksis it will do all that for you.

Do yourself a BIG FAVOR and use a router. It's MUCH simpler than using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS).

For $42 buy a 4 port DSL/Cable router: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... WSE&depa=0

The cable modem connects to the WAN jack on the router, the two computers connect to the switch ports.

With cable there's nothing else to do but power cycle the modem (turn it off for 20 seconds then back on) to allow it to recognize the MAC address of the router instead of the computer.

THAT'S IT.

No messing with ICS, firewall, or having to worry about having one computer turned on all the time to share the connection.

OK, that sounds good.

I figure that from my garage to that bedroom (considering the route I have to run the cable) is going to take about 80 feet of cable.

Am I going to get some signal degradation from a cable that long (like losing some speed/bandwidth)?

Nope. You can run that stuff in excess of 300 feet before you need a switch to amplifiy it.

If you make your own cable it's VERY IMPORTANT that you wire it properly. You MUST use the proper color code (the reason why you can't swap wires around as long as they're consistent on both ends has been explained here many times - suffice it to say that if you don't do it right, you will have severe data loss).

It's so hard to make a good cable, BTW, unelss you do it every day, that I recommend you just go out and buy a pre-made 100' cable. You'll be MUCH better off.

I was assuming I would be using the same kind of coax cable, like the kind that comes into the house already. Are say I have to use a different type of cable? When you said about mixing colors of wires, that threw me off.

Edit:

I don't know what I was thinking there. I now assume it's the same type of cable that already runs from my modem to my computer's NIC? Jeez. Thanks FP for pointing that out, I almost went out and bought 100 feet of round coax cable! Heh heh, what I dumb ass I am.

OK, so where do I get that stuff? I don't want to make it, I want to buy it. How are the end connectors put on? I know I would have to do that because I don't know exactly how long it's going to end up being. 80 feet is approximate.

well.. a set of crimpers is gonna set you back about 30-40 bucks... so when all is said and done its going to be cheaper to just buy a premade 100' cable... now if you plan to make several cables it might be worth the 40 for the crimper, but if your just making one cable then it would be a waste.

Home Depot (yes Home Depot) and Office Depot carry CAT5 network cable. NewEgg sells a 100' cable for $13 shipped: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... WSE&depa=0

Buy a 100' cable and coil of the slack somewhere.

The modem connects to the WAN port on the router using the CAT 5 cable that's currently going to your computer from the modem. The router will come with a 4 foot cable that you can connect from one of the router's 4 switch ports to the closer computer. Then connect the 100 ft cable from another switch port to the distant computer.

Good idea, I will just get the 100 ft and coil the extra (it won't be that much anyway) and skip buying crimpers. I wasn't looking forward to putting connectors on the ends anyway, looks rather intricate.

On that link for the router. I notice some come with different numbers of ports. The one you suggested has 4. Fill me in on the importance of the number of ports. Thanks

most home routers have 4 ports, all that means is you can hook 4 computers directly to it. If you need more you can add a seitch and plut that into one of the ports, but that is going beyond what you need. 4 ports will work fine for you

OK dudes. I just got the router today (got the one FP suggested) and am reading the instructions. The hookup is straight forward enough.

Now I'm reading about what to do when it's all hooked up (I haven't hooked anything up, I'm just reading the instructions). Now I'm confused again.

It says for me to go to this website (http://192.168.0.1) and follow the directions to finish setting everything up. Well IF I can go to a website, it means I am accessing the internet already. Why do I have to do anything further?

Well after going to this website, I am go to this setup wizard. It asks me to set up a password. Is this necessary? I don't want to have to type in a password everytime I access the internet.

Then it asks me to set up an Internet Connection Type (Wan). There are three options.

Dynamic IP Address
Static IP Address
PPPoE

I have no idea what to do here. I have Comcast cable. Each of those three options has it's own window to fill in the blanks and each one has different information needed to fill in. I don't know which one I'm suppose to use and what to put in the blanks.


HELP! ! !