Please help setting up a network....

[BEN BOB]

Hello...I need some help with setting up my home
network. I've had 4 people look at it & all 5 of us
would say we are good with computers...so i'm at a loss.
i'm trying to set up a desktop w/ xp pro & a laptop w/ xp
home. i've run the network wizard probably 100 times at
least to no avail. i dont know whats going wrong.
basically i started with my desktop & i was accessing the
net thru my cable modem & a wireless router because i
never had a 10/100 nic in the desktop. never had any
problem with that. i got the laptop & i was told i would
be able to access the net wirelessly thru the router but
not to network between the two computers unless i got a
separate nic for the desktop. so i went & purchased the
pci nic for my desktop & installed that. so i've been
trying to wire the router to the desktop nic via cab5 &
then create a wireless network between the two pc's. but
for some reason its not working. its tickin me off...i
dont know what more i can do??? i've done all the easy
stuff like ensuring the workgroups are the same & stuff
like that. only thing i can see is that my router
booklet is saying that i can use the router as a "bridge"
or as a "router" essentially the "bridge" mode allows me
to use the router as a bridge between the two computers.
but it states that would negate my hardware based
firewall within it. so i'd have to run from my modem
straight to my desktop & then wirelessly from desktop to
the router & from the router to the laptop & later when i
finish that the xbox via cab5 from the router. but i
dont want to do that because of the fact that i want to
maintain the hardware firewall and i dont want to go out
& buy another doggone router! please someone tell me
something! tell me i'm not crazy & i'm not the only one
thats going thru/been thru this!

thanks again...all you guys out hear are great...cant
tell you how many of these prob's i've had fixed by you
guys! thanks again...ben

 

[nkjg]

Hi there,

Running the network wizard over and over and over again
won't help you (as you've probably already found out).
Also, the part about not being able to network between
your wireless laptop and wireless computer is crap. I've
got a setup at home where I have 3 desktops and a laptop,
where only one of the desktops is hardwired into the
router (I use that one to make changes to the network
settings).

Can you get each computer to ping the router?
What are the IP addresses of each computer and the router?
What is the subnet mask for each computer and the default
gateway?
What kind of router are you using (Brand and model#)?

Just a note (and a very important one at that). You need
to have a hardwire connection to your router when you
first set it up (i.e through a cat5 or cat5e cable). If
you don't, you run the risk of your settings not saving
properly or not at all.

I've found that the best way to fix problems with small
networks like these is to start from scratch.

Unplug all connections to the router as well as the power
cable to the router.

Plug the router back in and wait for the status lights to
turn to their normal colours (usually green).

Press the reset button and hold it depressed for about 30
seconds (the button is usually on the bottom or the back
of the router, you might need to use a straightened paper
clip to do this).

Now follow the instructions provided with the router to
set everything up as new. Use the desktop computer
hardwired into the router to make sure that everything is
set up properly. You can turn on your wireless connection
in your desktop and see if it will connect to the router.
After you've got the basic connection between your router
and your computers, then enable WEP on the routers and
the computers.

You should still be able to use the router as a router
and still network the computers together. Try what I
mentioned above... getting everything to work through ICS
makes me shudder and kind of defeats the purpose of
having a router in the first place (you can ICS between
two wireless cards without a router at all, but then you
loose the hardware firewall as you said).

Hope this helps,

Nick
nkjg/at\interchange/dot\ubc/dot\ca

 

[Bob Willard]

Hello...I need some help with setting up my home
network. I've had 4 people look at it & all 5 of us
would say we are good with computers...so i'm at a loss.

Judging by your post, while some of you may have some knowledge
of some aspect of computers, your overall understanding of
networking is novice-level at best.

i'm trying to set up a desktop w/ xp pro & a laptop w/ xp
home. i've run the network wizard probably 100 times at
least to no avail. i dont know whats going wrong.

Running the wizard more than a few times is a waste of time, which
should be obvious to 5 people who "say we are good with computers".

basically i started with my desktop & i was accessing the
net thru my cable modem & a wireless router because i
never had a 10/100 nic in the desktop. never had any

A 10/100 NIC is not needed to network (share files/printers) between
PCs, although 10/100 is faster than 10. For accessing the web via
a DSL or cable modem, 10/100 is not even noticeably faster than a
mere 10 Mb/s NIC, since the DSL or cable is so much slower than
10 Mb/s.

problem with that. i got the laptop & i was told i would
be able to access the net wirelessly thru the router but
not to network between the two computers unless i got a
separate nic for the desktop. so i went & purchased the

Wrong. With a standard SOHO wireless router, you can network
wired PCs with wired PCs, wireless PCs with wireless PCs, and
wired PCs with wireless PCs.

pci nic for my desktop & installed that. so i've been
trying to wire the router to the desktop nic via cab5 &
then create a wireless network between the two pc's. but
for some reason its not working. its tickin me off...i
dont know what more i can do??? i've done all the easy
stuff like ensuring the workgroups are the same & stuff
like that. only thing i can see is that my router
booklet is saying that i can use the router as a "bridge"
or as a "router" essentially the "bridge" mode allows me
to use the router as a bridge between the two computers.

Right. You do not want to use the router as a bridge.

And, you do not want to add a redundant Cat5 (not cab5)
inter-PC cable since the router already supplies the makings
of a LAN. That extra connection will just cause problems.

And, you certainly cannot use a standard Cat5 cable this way,
since a crossover cable is needed to directly connect two NICs.

but it states that would negate my hardware based
firewall within it. so i'd have to run from my modem
straight to my desktop & then wirelessly from desktop to
the router & from the router to the laptop & later when i
finish that the xbox via cab5 from the router. but i
dont want to do that because of the fact that i want to
maintain the hardware firewall and i dont want to go out
& buy another doggone router! please someone tell me
something! tell me i'm not crazy & i'm not the only one
thats going thru/been thru this!

If the router is (or can be) close to the desktop, then here's my
suggestion: use a wired connection from your desktop to your router
(since wired is more robust than wireless), and a wireless connection
from your laptop to your router. Enable the router's DHCP server,
and set all PCs to be DHCP clients; that will force all PCs to be
in the same IP subnet. Give each PC its own name, and make sure
they all have the same workgroup name. Disable (forever) ICF on
all XP PCs, and (temporarily) remove all other firewall apps from
all PCs.

By now, every PC should be able to ping itself and the router, and
ping every other PC (wired or wireless) using both ping-by-number and
ping-by-name; if ping-by-number works but ping-by-name fails, then
you have a DNS problem and should check those settings.

When ping works, you have a network; the next step is to get F&P
sharing working. In many cases, just running XP's NetWiz will fix it
all, but remember to tell the NetWiz that you connect to the 'net via
a Residential Gateway, which is M$'s term for a SOHO-style router.

 

[Ben]

If you have a wireless router with a built-in 4 port
switch, then connect your desktop to one of the ports on
the router. If you had a wireless network card for the
desktop, you should not have had to buy a new network
card to connect to the router using CAT 5 cable. To make
things as easy as possible, enable DHCP on the router,
select "automatically get an address" under TCP/IP
settings on the desktop, reboot, and let the router set
up the desktop with an IP address. Use this same
procedure for the laptop with its wireless network card.
If when you open "network connections" on either or both
the desktop and laptop you see anything with the
word "bridge" in it, delete it. Once both the desktop
and the laptop are on and have been assigned IP
addresses, you should be able to share files between them
and surf the Internet. That's what a router and a switch
are there for - to connect devices on the same network so
they can share stuff. To see what address was assigned
to the desktop or laptop, open a command prompt and
type "ipconfig /all". It will show you a lot of
information about the TCP/IP configuration. Absord this
and let me know what you've done.