Networking!

[Nemisis]

Hi guys looking for technical advice here.

My wife Tracey, wants to use the old PC we have as her own and i want to set it up so that it can access the net using our Broadband connection,

My current connection uses an external USB ADSL modem for broadband, What i want to know is what is the easiest way to connect the old PC to the net?

Do i get network cards for both PC's (Neither have metwork connections at the moment) and connect her up that way (i'd probably need advice in how to do this) or do i get an ADSL modem and router??

I want the best balance of cheapest and easiest way to do this as i would like to set it up for her in the next 2 weeks as it's her birthday soon and this is what she wants!!

(I need a new monitor for it, speakers, keyboard and mouse to get it running)

My Pc is running XP pro but hers will be running WIN 98 as it's an old PC with only a PIII 500 mhz chip and it would probably not run XP well since XP likes a lot of memeory and processor speed to run.

I am tending more to the Network card idea as this would let us share the Printer we have and cards are not to dear either.

Thanks in advance.

Nemisi

[Gator]

I would recommend changing your USB ADSL modem for a standard ethernet ADSL modem. Connect that new modem to a router and put a NIC in each PC and then connect those NICs to the router.

This (i think) is the easiest way to get a W98 machine on the network. It would also allow you to share printers, files, etc. The router also does a pretty good job of protecting your systems.

Additionally, her network connection would not be affected by your system rebooting, crashing, etc as it certainly will do when running Falcon ;)

-Brian

(I'm sure any one of several people can give details if necessary)

[Gator]

Raptor,

unless i am mistaken, his modem doesn't have an rj-45 port to connect cat5/cat6 cabling to. But, yes, you could use a hub instead of a router in my suggestion. It seems like either way he will need to switch his USB modem for a ethernet modem.

-Gator

[Softball]

I am not very familiar with DSL, but isn't the cable that runs from the DSL modem to the PC a RJ45 CAT5 cable, or is it a totally different setup?

For security I too recommend a router (Linksys, D-link, Netgear, etc..). If you can find a router with a built in Print Server, that's even better. Then you can plug in a printer to your network and share one printer through the Print Server. I have a seperate Print Server at home, and it allows me to share 3 computers on a single printer. A Print server is good because you eliminate the need to have the printer plugged into one of the computers on the network and then having to power up the computer for the other computer to print.

Good luck.

[Gator]

Well, it's not always that simple. I know for a fact that some modems (DSL or Cable) have only a USB port. It may not be as simple as removing an adapter.

He may have to replace the modem (not super-cheap) or choose an alternative such as connecing the hub to his pc and using internet connection sharing (ICS) from his XP box to let the other pc get its connection.

-Brian

[Nemisis]

Gator is right about the DSL modem that i have, it is only connected via a USB port and i have no ethernet connections on either PC, i think i will go with his plan for an new modem and NIC cards connected through a router.

The only thing is that the printer i currently have is an old Epson stylus colour 300 which is not compatible with XP-PRO as there are no drivers avalible to run it on XP only on Win 98 i have done an intensive search of the net for updated drivers to run it on XP but the most recent drivers are for win 98 and XP spits out loads of nasty error reports when i try to install them!!

Epsons web site says that for older printers use the drivers for Win 2000 to get them running on XP but as i said earlier the lastest drivers on their site are for WIN98!!!!

So the plan was to hook up the printer to Traceys PC running 98 and i could access it through the network connection.

Thanks for all the replies to this guys, i have been given no end of help from you concerning PC help since i joined WOF (especially from Dale that man is a walking PC encyclopedia Cheers Dale).

Maybe i'll get Tracey interested in a bit of OL gaming when she has her own PC set up!!

<S>

[Nemisis]

Well looks like i am going to take an easy route to networking just now, I have just got 2 NICs and cat cable to hook up the other pc on the network and will start saving for proper oruter and ethernet modem to get a proper firewall and safe network setup but the NICs will do for now.

I am using Zonealarm as my firewall and was interested to see that Chowda had said that he had to drop his firewall completely to get OL with Falcon!! I have used Zonealarm since i set up this new Pc and all i did was tell it to allow Falcon access to the net and it has worked fine for me with you guys the last few weeks.

I am still waiting on Traceys new monitor to arrive at the end of this week so will not be setting her PC up till then and i am expecting a few headaches setting up the Network to allow her access to the net and email but no doubt i'll get it sorted quick enough and i am looking forward to learning something new about PC's that i have never used before, i am one of those people that doesn't know anything about something until i need to use it.

Thanks for all the advice you guys have given me..

[Chowda]

what settings are you using to get zone alarm to work with falcon?

I have Win XP Pro and the free version of zone alarm.

With zone alarm I have 4 green check marks beside my "Falcon 4 SP (US)" program icon.

but another problem is that i haven't been able to hook up yet with Win XP Pro and falcon. The last time I was able to hook up online was with Win 98 and no zone alarm.

[Nemisis]

Chowda seems to me your running the exact same set up as me free Zonealarm plus XP pro and 4 checks on Falcon. but i hav no probs with falcon OL strange that you seem to be having a problem and i'm not usually it's the other way round.

[Chowda]

What I notice is when I activate the alerts I'll get a blocked messsage (UDP port or something) that zone alarm blocks with the hosts IP address as the probing source (uh....he said probing). The falcon connect screens shows connected, but I'm the only one showing on the screen.

I'm currently using Zone Alarm version 3.7.202

[Hammer]

The falcon connect screen is misleading... It always says connected, since it is a peer to peer networking setup (at least was and connects still work that way). It tries polling until it actually finds the server and will say connected even though it does not see anything else - basically it creates a virtual 'room' even if not really connected to the other computers. The 'rooms' that everyone creates need to sync up before everyone will see each other - and that will not happen if your networking is not right.