what you need is a switch or a DSL Router/Switch in one box. That is what most places sell these days. so that your network will look like this



DI-704P is the switch/router

computers are not design to connect to each other without a switch or a hub between them. You can turn one of your computers into a router, but that is more hassle then it's worth.

steve k.
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Grant wrote:

The easiest solution to this: Go down to Best Buy or some other electronics store and buy a DSL/Cable router. You connect the DSL line into one port (which will be labeled), and your two computers into two of the other four available ports.

i understand the security benefits of a router and i did buy and do have a Linksys 4 port router but get the identical errors as pictured when trying to run the wizard on the desktop....not being concerned about security i'd prefer to leave the router out of the loop

what i want to do is just a simple ad hoc network so i can use the laptop to share the dsl from an adjoining room

the dsl is no differnet than any other internet sharing...cable or dial-up...the dsl goes into one nic on the pc and the network is suppose to connect using the 2nd nic...in my case the usb nic adapter which is a nic that is p-n-p thru a usb port

the Belkins usb adapter....

belkins wrote:

The easiest way to get your computer ready to share Internet access is through an available USB port. The Adapter simply plugs in to let your PC connect to your cable or DSL modem, as well as share files and peripherals with computers that are connected to the connected to the network. With instant, Plug-and-Play USB and the simple setup with our included software, you can add sharing capability in minutes without opening your computer case to install a card. Tech Specs

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Portrait of a Deadbeat

I can feel your pain.

I have a new laptop for work (GE) that I should be able to connect to the cable at work or use on my wireless network at home. I spent 2 hours on the phone with India. We got past the safeboot and into windows, but no access to the internet. New laptop says "Limited or no connectivity". The three other items (laptop, PSP, desktop) that use the wireless network at home have NO problems.

Now, they want me to connect to the internet so we can syncronize. Um...that is the problem, I CAN'T connect to the internet. Their reply, "Ok then, when would be a good time for you to have your computer connected to the internet?" Um...NOW. "No. When should we call you back when you have the computer connected to the internet?" Um...(getting frustrated) later tomorrow.

I ended up shutting it down and putting it back in the bag. Maybe I'll try again next week. I'll let the open call sit in their cue for a few days. Maybe it will get escalated and I can finally get help.

Thanks for the vent room esty. Let's see who gets there first.
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Steve J
72 tii / 88 M3 / 99 328 / 08 MCS R55
& too many bikes

SteveJ wrote:

I ended up shutting it down and putting it back in the bag. Maybe I'll try again next week. I'll let the open call sit in their cue for a few days. Maybe it will get escalated and I can finally get help.

you to?....this is my umteenth time to get the bag and take it all back out...i don't consider myself a computer dummy but this has me whip'd....i've been trying to set up a network for 6 months or longer...i get frustrated and pack it up and put it away til i get annoyed cause it beat me, pull it all out again and start over...

read about an ad hoc network...it's suppose to be the easiest to do...crossover cable from one pc to the other...but i can't make it work

it's not just my laptop...i've drug 3 other pc's in the house into my office and have the same exact issues
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

without DSl involvement, have you been able to successfully connect both computers together with the crossover cable? firewall on win xp, in a lot of cases, will prevent you from seeing the computer on the network.

steve k.
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steve k. wrote:

without DSl involvement, have you been able to successfully connect both computers together with the crossover cable? firewall on win xp, in a lot of cases, will prevent you from seeing the computer on the network. steve k.

no sir...i have been unsuccessful in connecting another pc with my office pc in any fashion...i have never used the xp firewall and it's disabled...each time i've tried to conquer the beast, i shut down any other firewall and anti-virus i use
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

i have not dealt with windows in a while, but you need to assign an ip to each of your machines. 192.168.1.10 to one and 192.168.1.11 to the other
subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0. DNS server need to be given to you by your DLS company

if you have both connected with a crossover cable, you should be able to ping one machine from the other.

in command windo type ping 192.168.1.11 from the machine that has 192.168.1.10 IP

steve k.
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if I understand you right you are connecting the PC to a usb adapter that is hooked into your laptop right?

Is your PC USB 2.0?

Are you using USB legacy mode /compatability mode in the bios? (it might be worth switching that on if its off, or off if its on just to see if it makes a difference) -- or possibly do that on the laptop too.

Just a thought beyond what others have suggested.

-z

esty wrote:

i understand the security benefits of a router and i did buy and do have a Linksys 4 port router but get the identical errors as pictured when trying to run the wizard on the desktop....not being concerned about security i'd prefer to leave the router out of the loop

Trying to share out a connection through the PC is actually much more complicated. You're dealing with two problems...1. is the laptop network adapter working and 2. is the sharing working from the desktop.

If you continue trying to connect the laptop adapter with the PC, you need a crossover cable. Straight-through cables are only used to connect different kinds of devices (i.e. switch to computer, never computer to computer).

Does the laptop adapter have a link light? If nothing else, the PC network card should. If the laptop adapter is powered up correctly, when you connect a (proper) cable between the laptop and the desktop you should get the link light on regardless of whether the network settings are configured correctly yet. Without link, you'll never get anywhere.

But really, you should use the DSL router/switch...
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Matthew Cervi
'73 tii

i am using a crossove cable to connect the laptop and the desktop...

here's a pic of the setup


dsl into intergrated NIC built into desktop's motherboard

USB NIC connecetced to Desktop for 2nd nic

crossover cable from laptop nic to USB NIC in desktop
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

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It doesn't look like this device is USB2 but its USB 1 since windows 98 is supported.

You should check your bios to make sure you've got the compatability mode set because it may well not be recognizing the network connection due to the USB 1 not talking to your USB 2 port

maybe ;)

_z_ wrote:

It doesn't look like this device is USB2 but its USB 1 since windows 98 is supported. You should check your bios to make sure you've got the compatability mode set because it may well not be recognizing the network connection due to the USB 1 not talking to your USB 2 port maybe ;)

i have the DSL modem running into the USB nic now and it's A-ok...a short while ago i had the usb nic connected to the laptop with the dsl connected and the dsl work'd on the laptop...

my desktop's integrated nic is 2.0 but even if the usb nic is 1.0...isn't 1.0 backwards compatible? if there was a problem with the usb nic i wouldn't think the dsl would work thru it the same as it does on the hard nic's of the laptop and/or the laptop

the desktop recognizes both in the device manager and shows both are working and enabled...however whichever nic i don't have the dsl plug'd into shows the RED X in the device manager and network connections in the control panel...even when i have the desktop and laptop connected with the crossover
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

well it might not be the USB, but i've seen some funky things when you mix the USB standards -- where devices are recognized but fail some of the time or look like they should work but don't.

In the bios (hit del during boot up) you can usually find different settings to fiddle with relating to the backward compatability. I've found that once in a while changing those settings can get a device to work.

Your laptop settings may be different than your PC -- and its probably a different bios vender/chipset and so on so it might be less fickle.

Just an idea -- takes just a min and a reboot to try. If it doesn't do anything just change it back to the settings that were in there before.

best of luck

-z

I've not read through everyones responses, but here are my thoughts.

Firstly I never trust wizards and you need to get the private network working. The private network on the machine that is also connected to your DSL connection should have an IP address in the same subnet as the machine that you're trying to proxy for. I.E. pick a an address like 10.9.9.1 and put it on one machine, and put 10.9.9.2 on the other machine and give them both a netmask of 255.255.255.0. The machine that is proxying should not have a default gateway installed on this interface and both machines should have whatever DNS servers your DSL provider has given you inserted into their appropriate fields. Make sure you can ping each device. From 10.9.9.1 try to ping 10.9.9.2 and vice versa. Make all of these setting changes manually if you have to instead of using the stupid wizard. Wizards are looking for things like DHCP servers and BOOTP servers to hand out addresses usually. Right click on the device and goto properties then TCP/IP and manually enter all of the information you need to.

I think I read you've got a crossover cable between these two hosts, so I think you've got that covered, but just make sure that the pinout looks right. Wikipedia has a good page on this here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable

Lastly, once you have these machines seeing their networks correctly, you'll just need to setup the public interface on your computer to allow internet connections sharing. Right click on it and goto properties, then advanced and you'll see a box to check.

Hope this helps. Send me an email if you like and I'll try to help more if I have more info.

Oh and guys, it shows the device listed there, so the drivers are installed, it just doesn't like the connection. I.E. it probably doesn't find a DHCP server on that network, so it can't get an address, so it can't talk to anyone.
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-=Scott=-
My Short Bus

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a couple of weeks ago when i was fidgeting with it, i installed a 2nd nic in an empty slot in the desktop and got the same results....my thought on getting the usb adapter, after reading a lot, was 2 hard nics might have had some kind of conflicts, etc..

it was suggested in order to avoid possible conflicts of 2 hard nics in one machine to use the usb adapter

for an ad hoc network the host machine must have 2 nic's for internet sharing...one runs the cable or dsl, the other connects the 2 machines via the crossover cable
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

thats pretty strange. I don't know of any reason why you can't have two NICs in .. so maybe your windows is screwed up such that it won't let you have more than 1 nic.

Have you tried deleting the current nic from the device manager and letting it reinstall? Maybe refreshing the networking parts of XP (it is xp right?) will get rid of some issue.

Naturally you risk screwing that one up too so .. maybe you don't want to do that. :(

disable and reinable it too.

i have uninstalled them all and reinstalled...i don't know of any conflicts i had when i had the 2 hard nics installed...both appeared in device mgr....i was just hoping for it to work with the external nic...yes all the machines i own run xp pro svc pk 1

i think i might have stumbled onto some of my problems...i had a lot of services disabled...i'm going to enable everything tomorrow and start from square 1...again
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

esty wrote:

i understand the security benefits of a router and i did buy and do have a Linksys 4 port router but get the identical errors as pictured when trying to run the wizard on the desktop....not being concerned about security i'd prefer to leave the router out of the loop what i want to do is just a simple ad hoc network so i can use the laptop to share the dsl from an adjoining room

Even if you aren't concerned about the security, using the router will be the easiest way to get this to work.

Connect the cable that's currently going from the DSL into the PC into the "internet" port on the router instead. Then, connect both computers to the router, but NOT using a crossover cable. You need a regular straight through cable for this.

Go to the properties of the network adapter on both computers, and select the "TCP/IP" properties. Make sure this is set to use DHCP. It probably already is, as that's the default setting and probably part of the difficulty in connecting the two computers directly. I'd attach a picture, but I'm at work and they keep the PC's here locked down pretty tightly. Ironically, even though I'm a network engineer, I don't actually have access to get into the network properties. :)

Hooking up two computers directly seems like it should be the easiest way to network them, but it's really not. You have to manually assign them IP addresses, along with the subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS server addresses. You also need to use WINS or NetBIOS if you're going to try to connect from one to the other using the computer names instead of just the IP addresses.

Trust me, using the router is the easiest way. It'll automate all of these settings.
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'70 1600 - Chamonix - 2.0L + 5-speed
'04 Chrysler Crossfire - Black
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The "put it back in the bag for a while" repair seemed to work for me. At least partially. I turned on the new laptop at home to use Excel. I noticed that it was seeing my wireless network. For giggles I tried to connect with my VPN and the damn thing worked. The only thing I need to do now is correct the settings for sync'ing the PDA and get access to all my offline outlook folders.

Still not connecting at work- That one HAS to be an address setting with their network. We had this issue before.

Other than the "put it back in the bag for a while" repair, I am prone to use the "fling the damn thing across the room" approach. One is usually more costly than the other.
_________________
Steve J
72 tii / 88 M3 / 99 328 / 08 MCS R55
& too many bikes

much thanks to all your support guys...believe it or not after almost a year of occasionally trying to make this work, i did it this morning....

my problem was a simple one actually...each time i install a fresh copy of XP the very 1st thing i install after is XP antispy...it's a little ditty makes some registry changes that stop the error reporting, automatic updates, etc...anyway one of the needed services for the network that it turned off was file and print sharing...once i turned all the necessary services...i had a network...

one thing that's a mystery to me is that the built in network wizard would not establish a connection if i tried to share my internet connection...

to try and just get the 2 pc's seeing each other i set it up as though neither had an internet connection...after playing with my new network i accidentally clicked a web link that was sitting in some folder...much to my surprice...the browser open'd and the laptop also connected to the web with the desktop...both are also sharing the internet connection

2 NIC's in the desktop, a single patch cable...no router, switch or any other gear is involved

thanks a bunch
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

God I hate computers. I hate them so much. OUCH! my pc bit me. EBCIDIC forever! I can do hex!
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