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by david.colligan

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I have connected my sons pc to mine using a crossover, wire at first it worked but now its gone down, i am on ntl broadband and every time i switch my pc on i have to disconnect the power to the setbox for mine to work, but his does not any ideas

8 replies

by packratt

How are you supplying the IP address to your son's PC?

I would imagine what's happening is that your PC and your son's pc are battling over which one will get to use the single IP address that is supplied by your ISP.

You have to use some sort of NAT on your machine so that your son's PC will get an internal network address which your machine will translate to it's own external address so you both can access resources through your ISP connection.

by tomsal

Forgive for sounding condescending by why on God's green earth are you using a crossover cable for this network application?

Use a router, they aren't that expensive and once you have it set up just plug BOTH your machines in and viola! Problem solved...forever!

by ccollins

Hubs are cheaper. X-over cable is a perfectly acceptable (if a little old-fashioned) method as well. Null modem cable could be used as well.

by tomsal

Did I ever say a X over cable won't get the job done? No I didn't think so either.

I merely questioned WHY? It sounds to me the thread author is talking about what seems to be a "permanent" network whereby they want to share a common broadband connection.

Knowing all you know about networking, and of course I have no clue how in-depth your knowledge is on the subject, you would honestly tell me as a permanent network connection to share a broadband connection between two computers you would use a X over cable? Going farther, assuming again you have expertise in networking and related networking security -- you'd suggest a hub?

If you answer yes to both, then sorry but I question your breadth of expertise then in the networking area.

I stand by my original post.

by david.colligan

Thanks for replying i have only done hardware so don't know a lot about networking, thats why i have asked for your help, plus every time i switch off my pc and then switch it back on i have to pull the turn the power off the cable modem box and wait 2 mins.

by lmv

Get a router that will solve all of your problems. You can go down to Wal-Mart and pick up a router plug it in and your good to go the instrctions are fairly easy. You really dont need a X cable when you can do so much more with a router

by dhoffman

If all he wants to do is share files between these two computers, then all he needs is a crossover cable. A router is a glorified hub with ports for mutiple computers. A router simply routes traffic down the correct port based on the TCP/IP protocol and keeps this traffic off of the other ports. If he's just got two computers, then a router is an over kill.

by revlarry

He says he has to reset the cable modem every time he cold boots his PC, I believe. If he wants to share the cable connection AND local files between the 2 computers, the router's probably not overkill. It used to be more expensive, and at one point I myself had two NICS in one computer - one for local, one for cable. But routers are cheap enough these days that's its no big deal, and you avoid having to tear apart the PC to fiddle with NICs.

Here's the setup I used at home when I was at 100Mbps -- it may solve our friends problems too:
Get something like a 4-port broadband router, and plug the cable modem into the router's WAN link. the plug plain old CAT5e cables from both of your PC's to the regular router ports. Shut everything down. Power up the cable modem and wait for it to COMPLETELY finish initializing. Then do the same for the router. Finally turn on your PC's and make sure they are set to obtain IP addresses automatically, and you're good to go. Should stop the constant need to reboot the modem -- although you'll probably want to enforce some sort of security before too long.

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