Home networking Issues . . .

johnny · Post by **johnny** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 9:43 pm

I am running cable broadband in my garage through a cable modem and then into a D-Link DI-604 router.

In one room of my home I have three machines that I want to network. In this room I only have one cat-5 outlet, so I bought a Linksys 5-port hub and used it to accomodate the extra machines. It works fine when browsing the web, e-mails and such. But, when I try and set up the network I can't find all the three machines at the same time . . . sometime I can see one machine and not the others. Then I can see machine #2, but not machine #3, etc. Sometimes it will prompt me for a password (which I didn't set-up with password???) and other times it logs in fine.

All I want to do is share the one printer I have, and synchronize files over the network.
I am running Win XP on all my machines and have done the network set-up dozens of times with the same result. I have disabled all firewalls at times, and other times simply configured the IP's into the firewall, but it still keeps doing the same thing.

I am begining to wonder if the hub is the wrong hardware for this particular application.

All help is greatly appreciated.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 10:19 pm

WELCOME TO PCA!

There's nothing wrong with using a hub - that's exactly what it's for. You should be running a cable from the modem to the WAN jack on the router, then from one of the ports on the router to any port on the hub (or switch) and then each computer should connect to the hub on it's own port.

A common gotcha is that some hubs/switches have two jacks for the number 1 port (most modern hus and switches have automatic ports which can detect a crossover cable and switch itself accordingly). One jack is a crossover jack used to link two hubs together. You must NEVER connect two devices to both jacks at the same time - it's one or the other.

Firewalls should be disabled on all computers if you want to do file or printer sharing. If the firewall is on you won't even see any computers in "My Network Places".

If you're getting prompted for a password it's because there's a password setup for the user on the computer you're trying to access a shared resource from. You need to provide a username and password for that user. If you want to avoid this, don't use passwords on your user accounts (if you're using WinXP Pro or Win2K Pro you need to enable the Guest user account if you don't want to use passwords on shared network resources). More detailed info on file sharing here: http://www.homenethelp.com/web/howto/net.asp

Make sure you are using the same workgroup name on all the computers.

Are all these computers running WinXP? Win98 and WinME has known issues which sometimes prevent them from seeing other computers on the network. You will also have a problem seeing computers if the network name of the computer has unusual characters in it like an underscore. You should only use letters, numbers and hyphens in network names.

If it's intermittent as you're implying then the problem may be packet loss. Did you crimp the ends for the network cables yourself? If so, did you use a cable tester to make sure the cables were wired properly? It's easy to make a network cable that works fine for internet (internet has inherent packet loss and is so slow that you can run it on terrible wiring and it'll still seem to work fine, but try doing file and printer sharing on the same cable and it goes to pieces). It's very difficult to crimp the ends on a network cable properly - even when you'vwe been doing it for years. Not unusual to have an intermittent connection.

If you did make your own cables, did you use the standard RJ-45 color coding when you crimped the ends? It's IMPORTANT that you do - you CANNOT arbitrarily pick the colors for the pins. Some people just assume that it doesn't matter what color you use for which pin as long as you use the same color on the same pin on both ends BUT THIS IS NOT THE CASE. You MUST maintain proper pairs or the cable will not be properly shielded and you'll have major packet loss. The colored pairs of wires are twisted around each other in the cable and this is what shields the wires from radio interference. If you break the pairs the cable is useless at high data speeds.

You also must take care not to run the cable near sources of electical interference such as flourescent light transformers (always go around a florescent light fixture, NEVER over it). Anything that has a power transformer or a motor is a potential source of electrical interference.

Hope this helps...

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 10:43 pm

Just wanted to chime in and say that Johnny is my bro, and yes he's an old fart like me.

Nice to see you here bro!

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 10:54 pm

To further expand on what FP said a little, when dealing with packet loss....check to make sure you aren't having collisions on your hub. I had a similar problem and it was dealing with collissions. it's been awhile since I dealt with the problem but I believe I finally got it sorted out.

Also, are you sharing any computer in the garage? If not why not run the cable that goes from your router to the hub straight off the modem and move the router into the room where you want the three computers networked. If you are sharing them, then check out the type of cable you are using. If you are using a crossover cable (the wire sequence differs inside the connectors) then plug into the non-uplink port and if it's a straight through cable then plug it into the uplink port. That has been what I've done in the past to get things working correctly when adding a hub onto a switch or vice versa.

johnny · Post by **johnny** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:17 pm

Thank you for the help, this is tremendous!

Well . . . FP I am using cables that I purchased from a store to run from the hub to the three computers. I have no idea if these are crossover or whatever type cables. I just bought ones that the salesman said would work for this purpose.

I have configured it as you stated:

running a cable from the modem to the WAN jack on the router, then from one of the ports on the router to any port on the hub (or switch) and then each computer should connect to the hub on it's own port.

The only difference is that on the hub there is a port called "uplink" which is where I put the cable coming from the router. Then each machine is plugged into the first three ports of the hub.

Busby,
I am running an ftp server in the garage, however, near this spot I also have the other three pairs of cat-5 which go to the other rooms in my house (I have more machines in other rooms, and yes my wife thinks we have too many) so I don't see how this could be done without installing a bunch more cat-5 back into the garage. I am going to check into the crossover/non crossover cable theory and see if that does anything.

executioner,

You're still a douch-bag. LOL

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 1:04 am

If you have store-bought cables, and you have lights on all the ports the cables are connected to, you're fine. If you plug a cable that needs to be in a crossover into the wrong jack, the indicator lights won't come on for that port.

A crossover cable (or jack) is only used when connecting a hub to a hub, or a router to a hub. You are correct in connecting the cable coming from the garage to the cross over jack on the hub.

IMPORTANT: The crossover jack on the hub is ALWAYS associated with a standard jack (the crossover is just a regular jack wired backwards so you can conenct a hub to a hub). Usually the crossover on a hub is port number 1. YOU CANNOT CONNECT ANYTHING TO THE PORT ASSOCIATED WITH THE CROSSOVER JACK!!! This will cause MAJOR packet loss.

Look at the hub. The crossover jack is next to another numbered jack. There's probably some lines drawn on the box linking the crossover jack with the jack next to it to indicate that those two jacks are on the same port - as I said it's USUALLY port number 1. If you have something plugged into the jack associated with the crossover jack, unplug it and move it to another free port.

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 1:11 am

I'd definately check into the crossover issue as the salesman may have sold you one to interact between the hub and the router. The easiest way, if you ask me, is to look at the plug on the router side and try to look at the color scheme of the wires with the clip down. Then look at the plug the same way on the other end. If one end has an orange wire second from the left and the other end has a green second from the left then it's a crossover cable and it should be plugged into a normal port and not the uplink port. If both plugs are the same then plug the cable into the uplink port.

If you have the Linksys EFAH05W, the three computers should be in the first 3 ports on the left when looking at the back of the hub and the cable, if it's not a crossover cable, should be in the far right port, still looking at the back.

johnny · Post by **johnny** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:41 am

Many thanks for the help,

and sorry about the delays in replying back as it's been rather chaotic here lately.

OK, I've checked all the cables and they are all straight-through cables. The Linksys Hub I am using has from left to right: ports 1,2,3,4, with 5 and uplink in common. I have one of the ports from my router in the garage coming into this hub with a straight cable into the uplink port. Then, I am using straight cables from ports 1,2,3 into each of the three machines. . .

Do I need to use a cross-over cable at all?

hat

I am really begining to question whether this is a Windows related problem. . . and that the issues I am seeing are security/networking related rather than hardware????

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:43 am

Cross-over cable is not needed in your setup. It appears as though you are hooked up properly. What you should check for is the blinking collision light on the hub.

Have you tried pinging the computers? Make sure that pinging works. Next thing I would do is try a direct access to the computers for file sharing. By that I mean in an IE address bar type in "\\IP-Address" where IP-Address is the IP address of the computer. Those are backslashes. If sharing is correctly setup on the computer then you should see the list of shares. Try this for all three computers. File and printer sharing changed greatly, IMO, when Windows XP came around.

[RANT]
I couldn't for the life of me get it to work untill a friend suggested running the Network wizard. Amazingly after I did that it all began to work. I had to run a stupid wizard to get file and printer sharing to work correctly! Still to this day I have issues with it and I never understand why. I didn't have these issues in Win2k and the setup is the same. Quite annoying.
[/RANT]