office network

ronbyrne2005

hello, volunteering in a small charity at present and they want me to try and sort out their small computer network in the office. they have a buffalo linkstation and a netgear gigabit ethernet switch that they want linked with all the pc's and eircom broadband in the office.theres a big old nortell box/router ,can the ethernet switch replace these old nortell box and what do i need to do to hook the four pc's printer and the linkstation. any feedbacl would be appreciated

humaxf1

hello ron,

Have they got eircom BB installed and operating at present? Either way, the netopia modem supplied by eircom will have either 1 or 4 local network sockets (bit wider than a phone socket). To get the network going...each PC will require

a 10/100 or 10/100/1000 Mbps card (they may have a built-in card already)
a straight through CAT5/CAT6 network cable to run between the switch and network card in the PC
the linkstation will require a straight through cable to connect to the switch

Is the printer connected via USB, parallel or network connection? If network, you will require 6 ports (plus a straight through cable) and a few ports in reserve. If it's one of the other two, it's a case of sharing the printer on the PC to which it's connected. The other PCs then add a network printer. Just remember, that for printing to happen, the host PC must be switched on!


List a bit more info such as PC specs, swich specs, link station specs and so on. I'll be able to guide you further then.

cheers

ronbyrne2005

on second thoughts i think the network is working ok as it is, the eircom broadband connected to the nortell router seems to be working fine so i just wanna connect the buffalo linkstation to the existing LAN, i think they have the ethernet switch to connect the linkstation to the router? is it simply a matter of connecting the linkstation to the ethernet switch and then the switch to the router? they just want extra network storage.
cheers

ronbyrne2005

any ideas?

seamus

All depends on what the Nortel box is. Is it a switch, is it a bridge, is it a router?

How is the network currently set up?

Eircom Broadband -> Nortel Box

Where do all the computers plug into?

What are you trying to accomplish? Wireless access to the office network?

ronbyrne2005

at moment the eircom broadband connects to nortell router which four pc's and printer are plugged into. just trying to set up storage on the network.

seamus

You should be OK to just plug the linkstation straight into the Nortal router so.