Home network question for the techies,,,

[sunfunbill]

Ok, I'm almost ready to hook up my damn laptop, got a few more questions. My friends have their own pc. They have roadrunner, which is britehouse. So, I'm going to connect my laptop to their system.

Now, The normal way is you get a router, run one ethernet wire to one pc, another to the other. I was looking at them today and also saw these ethernet "switches". They cost less. The staples guy said I can just get a switch and use it as a router for what I want to do.

So, is he right? Can I just buy the switch, then run the wires from that to each pc?

Also, I tried to plug in their ethernet wire into my laptop today now that I figured out how to make it "see" the connection. I plug it in. It "saw" the connection, the old broadcom 440x 10/100 intergrated somethingorother I use to have, says it can't connect.

I clicked "repair connection". It refreshed the ip address, says it cannot connect. So, do I delete that connection and hope it makes a new one the next time I try? Seems to be trying to find my old ip address I had up north.

Thanks much!

[balls_deep]

By a switch i figure you mean a splitter? You can get a linksys router that will do that and wireless for like 40 bucks.

I'd call roadrunner and let thier tech guys talk you through the setup of your laptop.

[sunfunbill]

By a switch i figure you mean a splitter? You can get a linksys router that will do that and wireless for like 40 bucks.

You can? Where? I see Linksys wireless routers for 60 and up, non wireless for 58. Plus with a wireless don't you also have to buy the two wireless cards or whatever to attach to each PC?

If you can get them that cheap I'll go with them, just can't find any for under 58. A switch, not sure if it's the same as a splitter, I can get for 29.

[balls_deep]

http://cgi.ebay.com/D-Link-wireless-...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/D-Link-DI-624-Wi...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Belkin-Wirel...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Netgear-WGR614-8...QQcmdZViewItem

[sunfunbill]

Sorry, but I don't do ebay anymore. Ebay can suck my silicone boobs and shove my wig up their well brownnosed hole!!!

But, I can understand why you found them cheap on feebay.

[balls_deep]

http://arfarfarf.com/review/tools/be...ess_router.php

[sunfunbill]

HHmm, nice. And you don't need a wireless thingy?? That's the part I don't understand. If it's wireless the pc's must have a way to wirelessly comunicate with it. Does it come with an adapter you plug into the pc??

I'll go online and study that brand and more. Thanks for showing me it, You may have saved me some $$ plus a lot of work.

[balls_deep]

google is a motherfucker...

that was the third link for "wireless routers under $40"

[sunfunbill]

google is a motherfucker...

Yeah yeah, ok ok. It's just that after I went to the big three, Best buy, staples and office depot, I figured whatever I saw there had to be the cheapest, plus I always thought with wireless you also had to buy a card for each PC to complete it.

Again thanks, I'll look at everything closer now and learn about what you need for wireless.

[balls_deep]

I love Belkin products, they are cheap and work with everything. just an fyi .

[Hammer]

I have a Belkin router. I have my main pc wired but my laptop and other pcs in the house are wireless. All you need to do is connect the cable from the wall to the router and get an adapter for your pc.

Comp USA in Altamonte is defunct and has some cheap prices right now but a no return policy. I just had to get a new adapter for my laptop and got it at Circuit City for a good price. A decent Belkin router and a pc adapter will run you about $100.

[horney]

b_d, the switch Bill's describing is aka a hub. It should work but would be wired, not wireless. Both the PC and the laptop should have network cards on their mobos if they're reasonably modern, so it would be the cheapest option by quite a stretch. An 8 port hub here is only about £10, and prices here for that kind of stuff can usually be roughly converted 1 for 1 with dollars for the prices of stuff in the USA.

Take one cat 5 0r 6 cable from the cable modem to the switch, one from the switch to the PC and one from the switch to the laptop.

The big "but" here is whether the cable modem has been doctored not to work with more than one device, and it may well be able to detect a switched network. Hanging a router off it, the router can use the IP given and generate a LAN IP range for anything hanging off it. Whether or not cheapest, it may be the only option.

[sunfunbill]

Well my laptop has an internal wireless card. So maybe I can use the wireless router, hard wire it to the main PC and use the wireless card in my laptop for a wireless connection to the router like Hammer said.

Unless the type of card my laptop has is not the type you need for this. I'll go to compusa and ask the geek guys, they will know just what I need. In any case it's looking cheaper than I had thought. Thanks all!

[balls_deep]

if your laptop has integrated wireless then you should be set with your plan. No matter what the protocol... G,B,N. A router combination with your laptop should be fine.

[horney]

Indeed. Bill, don't let the terminology confuse you. If you have a wireless card in the laptop, it'll have the correct frequency range covered for the router, so no worry at all there.

If the PC doesn't have one, you can mix wireless and cable so there's no need to go to the expense of buying a card. Use a cable for the PC and wireless for the laptop.

Most wireless routers, I would think all but am not certain on that, have little sockets for the cable connectors (RJ45 sockets) as well as the wireless functions.

[Hammer]

Any card will locate your network router. It's just like when we go to hotels with wifi or Starbucks. You open your laptop, wait a few seconds for the adapter to discover the network and BAM you're connected. Sometimes, like in hotels where they don't want just anyone that happens to be near the hotel accessing their network you have to input a password.

[kg2]

bill, just to clarify something for you...

in order of complexity and features:

hub

aka a "repeater," simply takes packets that appear at one of its ports and duplicates them on ALL ports. this is perfectly fine with a few nodes but as the hub gets larger network utilization goes to the toilet since packets are not "steered" in any way towards their intended destination. it's like trying to talk on a party line--fine with a couple of folks, but impossible when there's 100 people on the same call. all wireless access points which communicate with wireless NICs are by definition hubs, since the RF traffic is a shared medium. because of their inherent limitations hubs are rarely found for sale today, having been replaced by the:

switch

a smarter version of the hub. basically "learns" which computers are attached to which ports, and steers packets to their intended destination. computers which aren't part of the "conversation" don't have to get bothered with useless information. the vast majority of switches operate on a "layer 2" level, which just means that they learn the physical addresses (also known as MAC addresses) of the ethernet devices connected to it, store that information in a dynamic table, and use that information to "steer" the packets.

router

a smarter version of the switch. a router can be programmed to join two different networks together and to operate at an even higher addressing level than the switch. routers work on layer 3, which is the layer of IP addresses. by programming the router it can make intelligent decisions in terms of literally ROUTING packets from point A to point B. one of the major advantages of routers is the ability to translate addresses, meaning what appears to be one address on one "side" of the router will be represented by another address on the other "side." this is a good thing because it allows an abstraction of the logical IP addresses from the physical MAC addresses, and makes it possible to use an IP scheme that cannot be routed across the internet.

most small/cheap routers include some ability to filter those packets based on a ruleset, and this is the basis of a "firewall." many of these small firewall/router devices include a local switch so that you can have more than one ethernet port available for your "inside" network. another version of the same would have a wireless ethernet access point integrated (which as stated earlier are inherently "hubs" but there's no way around that) so that you can use wireless.

having said all of that, let me finish by stating use wires wherever you can. i do this stuff for a living and will ALWAYS default to a good old copper line vs any kind of wireless. i busted my ass getting a cat5 cable from my 2nd floor to my basement for that very reason, even though i am on a laptop with a wireless connection right now: nothing beats the reliability, speed, and security of a hard line.

hth
kg

[sunfunbill]

Well just to let everyone know I went down to my local compusa. I guess all those branches are having a sale, everything was 15% off.

Anyway of course they did not have any of the low priced Belkins, only the high end ones. So I got a linksys router for 45 bucks. I can direct plug in the main PC, then use the wireless for my laptop.

Now I gotta wait till Monday for the girls to be at work. They always think I'm gonna screw something up when I go into the system, even though they always yell for me when something goes wrong.

I bet I can hook it up and have them not even know I did it.

[Hammer]

CompUSA is closing all of their stores that's why they're having the sale. All sales are final though so I wouldn't make any major purchase there.

[sunfunbill]

Well just to update everyone, a few hours ago I hooked up the router to the main PC, went through all the steps, pushed finish.

Turned to my laptop and,,,, can't find signal. I have verizon wireless manager cause of their card I had, so it controls everything. Shut it off, nothing. Poked around in connections, refresh, make new connection, make home network,,, nothing!!

Finally digging real deep I see a place to add new prefered connection. Just put linksys in the name,, add,,,,, and it works!!!!

I have no idea how I did it or even how to get back to that step, I'm not touching it. Girls can't even see I changed anything, unless the router makes a popup about updates or something. I'm not hiding it, they knew I was adding it. But, no see no on mind, ya know!

It's a bit faster, but hey it's only as fast as a laptop can be. Saving 50 bucks a month too!! Thanks all for the help!!