Home Network woes

[edward_4576]

Ok, I thought I had most everything tech down but I'm having an issue with setting up a home network.

First the hardware. I've a Vista powered machine and an XP laptop. I'm hooking them up to a linksys router and my ISP is a cable modem.

I can get ether one to hook up to the net by power cycling the pc and the modem, they reacquire an IP address and all is well and I do this through the router. Verified that the cables are OK. When I try to do them at the same time that's when I have issues.

According to what I need to do I need to configure the computers to share the IP. The instructions on this are a bit vague. So is there a windows/IP person that can give me an assist on the changes I need to make on my connections to do this? I would prefer to keep the desktop Vista machine as primary.

Ed

[msta999]

Ok, I thought I had most everything tech down but I'm having an issue with setting up a home network.

First the hardware. I've a Vista powered machine and an XP laptop. I'm hooking them up to a linksys router and my ISP is a cable modem.

I can get ether one to hook up to the net by power cycling the pc and the modem, they reacquire an IP address and all is well and I do this through the router. Verified that the cables are OK. When I try to do them at the same time that's when I have issues.

According to what I need to do I need to configure the computers to share the IP. The instructions on this are a bit vague. So is there a windows/IP person that can give me an assist on the changes I need to make on my connections to do this? I would prefer to keep the desktop Vista machine as primary.

Ed

I had a simmilar problem when I added a new computer. I finally gave up and called the provider and they did a reset or something at their end and they both started working.

Good luck.

[FZRaven]

You don't need to set them up to share the same IP, that's what the router is for. I can't say much on Vista, I've stayed away from it for the most part.

But to get a better understanding, what exactly are you trying to do?
Are you just trying to get both computers connected to the internet, or are you trying to set up a network to allow you to share files between the computers?

If it's the first it's really as simple as getting the router connected then plugging in the computers. Routers use whats called DHCP, it assigns a IP address to computer when they are connected. If you have set up any address manually, go back into your tcp/ip properties and check the obtain address automatically, Also check the same for the DNS server.

The second is a little more involved but not much, do the same thing set it to automatically obtain the addresses. Connect both computers and run the network setup wizard, also check firewalls to make sure they are set to allow the connections.

[edward_4576]

Yes I would like to be able to share files between both computers. the problem seems to be that my ISP (comcast) only allows one IP, I believe. The modem has a MAC address. I can't be sure but the only time I can get an IP assigned to ether machine is when I power cycle the modem and the computer at the same time. I tried using the ipconfig /renew command to see if I could get an IP for the computer that's not connected and it just times out.

Any thoughts on that?

[FZRaven]

I know when I setup my friends new router it was a real pain. She has the 3 play deal (Cable, Phone and Internet) You have to clone your MAC address then assign it to your router. Comcast makes it a pain so they can sell you a wireless router and charge you even more to use it.

here's a site that has the same steps I used to get her router working.

http://www.cs.umd.edu/~daveho/info/comcast.html

[edward_4576]

What I was calling a router is actually an Ethernet hub that I got my hands on. It's a linksys EZXS55W fast Ethernet switch. It doesn't have the same capabilities as a true router, would that make much of a difference?

[johnjmw]

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I thought most switches will not share an ip address with multiple computers at the same time. That is one of the main differences between a switch and a router. Oh there are lots of others, but the sharing of a broadband connection is why people buy a router for in a home
John

[blutfort]

A switch is not the same as a gateway/router.

The gateway router has a small program running in it that talks to the IP provider and gets the Internet IP address. This is called the WAN (Wide Area Network) address. As far as your IP provider needs to know, this is the only machine talking to their network. The same program in the gateway/router also acts as a DHCP server for the LAN (Local Area Network) side of your setup. It creates a dynamic (changes every reboot or every so often) IP address and assigns it to the two computers that you have in your house. When one of your computers tries to get data from the WAN(Internet) side it talks to the GateWay/Router. The router remembers who asked for the information and then asks the WAN(Internet) for the information using it's IP address it got from the IP provider servers. Once it has the information it then patches it through to the LAN side machine.

You can think of the gateway/router as an old time manual telephone operator patching all the local traffic to a national network or long distance exchange.

The switch you aquired doesn't have the ability to assign DHCP IP addresses or talk to the internet and get it's own IP address. However all is not lost!

There is a way to set up a windows machine to act as a gateway for other computers in your house. Just be warned that it will impose a cpu/memory load on the machine acting as a gateway.

To setup the windows machine as a gateway, plug your main computer into the switch, and the switch into the back of the DSL/Cable modem that you were given by your IP provider. Then get everything working. This verifies that there are no bad cables or hardware.

Then run the network setup wizard on the main computer and tell it that you want the machine to act as a gateway or other computer will connect to the internet through this computer. Once you have done that you should be able to plug in and run the network connection wizard on the second, third, etc...

Things to keep in mind with a home network.

Each computer must have a unique IP address. The IP address is like the computer's phone number. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if you and the nextdoor neighbor had the same phone number.

All of your LAN(Internal/Local) IP addresses will usually look like 192.168.1.XXX - These are special IP addresses that are used internally for LAN side use only.

You should typically only have one WAN IP address and it should only exist in your Gateway/Router. It will be substantially different from the 192.168.x.x It will be the only computer in the world with it's address.

Google XP/Vista Computer acting as a Gateway for several websites that give additional information on setting this up.

Remember that a switch is not the same as a router or a gateway. A switch is a very smart splitter. Kind of like a "Y-Cord" power adapter. It lets you plug lots of things into one plug. A gateway is a little person opening up all the envelopes of data coming from the outside world and then readdressing them and sending them to the correct machine inside your house.

[edward_4576]

I thought it might be something like that. I'm concerned about using my desktop as a router, egads as it is my desktop is a pig. Vista is one of the worst OS's I've ever used. At times it takes up to five minutes for the machine to shut down. sometimes I think it has a mind of it's own.....

Thanks
Ed

[MadTripper]

Here is a link to some routers. They are pretty easy to setup and add a nice level of security to your home network. I would stick with a NetGear, LinkSys or DLink as they are all pretty decent for a home user environment. I personally run a NetGear FVS-318 which I love but I use the VPN portion to connect to Colorado. It is a bit overkill for most situations. I've always liked LinkSys for their documentation. It is very straight forward and in laymens terms.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=28&name=Wired-Routers


Tripper

[macgeoghagen]

Difference between a SWITCH and a ROUTER

router: smart device. its used to make networks. a linksys will use the IP address your ISP gave you for its connection to the internet and it will assign more IP addresses to the computers in your network.

Switch: not so smart. its mostly just used when you run out of ports in your router and want to keep putting computers on. it can't assign IPs at all.

your ISP's router is just giving your house 1 IP address. if 2 computers both try to use that address, they fight. you can ask your ISP for an additional address, or you can go get an actual router.

[kberg]

Is this solved?

[edward_4576]

Looks like I'm gonna have to spring for a router, comcast wants an extra five bucks a month to give me a second IP. Cheap SOB's.

>:(

[kberg]

Routers are cheap for the most part. And all ISP's will charge you for extra IP's. IPv4 which is the current system that the world is using is supposedly running out of IP's that is why in the near future we will all be required to switch to IPv6 changing the use of IP's as everyone knows it.