Any way to directly connect 2 computers

Dermot2468

I just got a laptop and anm wondering is there any way to connect the 2 of them to send music/video files to the laptop i heard something about uing a usb cable to connect them or is there any way of using a ethernet cable to directly connect them, any help would be appreciated and go easy on me im not to good at this:rolleyes:

gnashrr

Ethernet cable ftw my friend Have you got a cross over ethernet cable? If you use a router to connect to your broadband it's the one you connect with.

Karoma

It'd help if you listed what ports are available.
Crossover Ethernet cable will do the job, provided they both have cards...

Dermot2468

thanks for the quick reply they bothe have ethernet connections but im not sure what a crossover cable is, i tried connecting the two together but nothing happened

ShiverinEskimo

This should help if you have/can get a crossover cable

You can pick them up in any computer shop. Just make sure you buy a crossover and not regular straight through.

http://www.conniq.com/WinXPNetworking_Ethernet_direct_connection.htm

Cuddlesworth

Ahh yes, the joys of windows networking. Through years of scare tatics and upgrades, your ability to network is limited by your experiance with windows. Best strart with the wizard in Network places and then enable sharing by right clicking on a folder.

cregser

Dermot2468 wrote:

...go easy on me im not to good at this:rolleyes:

You just need to swap the 50 giga watt transistor coil with a 99u capacitor and two 34.6ohm resistors in parallel...:rolleyes: Hmm, not funny.

The handiest way IMO is still the copy onto usb stick and swap over method. It saves you from having to learn about IP addressing subnet masks, windows workgroups, firewalls and their UDP/TCP ports and rules, shared folders and file read/write permissions, crossover and patch cables, yada yada etc.

But if you really want to know. First tell us if you have a (non-usb) router and two ethernet cables, or a single crossover cable (the orange and green wires swap over each end). If you have the router with 2 cables, that could make it a bit easier for you.

Dermot2468

i have a router with a ethernet connetction and a usb output the (zyxel one from bt) iat the moment i have the ethernet cable going to the pc and the usb cable going to the laptop and it is working fine but i cannot send files between the computers

gnashrr

USB memory sticks are all well and good but not if you have alot of stuff to move.

Long live 192.168.0.1!

Dermot2468

i was going to send a dvd to the laptop as it has a dvd burner and the pc doesnt, now to find a 7 gig usb stick! Where can i get a ethernet crossover cable and if i do get one is it hard to set up after that

cregser

Dermot2468 wrote:

i have a router with a ethernet connetction and a usb output the (zyxel one from bt) iat the moment i have the ethernet cable going to the pc and the usb cable going to the laptop and it is working fine but i cannot send files between the computers

Ok. That's a bit of an unusual arrangement. I haven't had a USB modem for ages so I'm not sure.

Try to test if the 2 computers can see each other. Goto Start menu>Run..., then type cmd on both computers. Then in the black window, type ipconfig.

You should see something like:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Network:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.254

Do it on each computer and remember the IP Address. Then you want to try and "ping" each computer. So to ping my computer (above) from a laptop, i would type ping 192.168.0.1 on the laptop in the same black DOS window.

You want to see this:
C:\>ping 192.168.0.1

Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

Understand?

Dermot2468

right i pinged the laptop from the pc and it worked and got a time of 2ms average but when i tried to ping the pc from the laptop i got request timed out

Dermot2468

wait i just tried it again and it worked both ways

cregser

Good, you've got a network! I'd try pinging a few times to see how stable that connection is. It could be a bad cable or something.

Right, now workgroups. Find the My Computer icon and right click on it, click Properties. Go to Computer Name. Then (in WindowsXP) click the Change... button. Give the laptop one name and the PC another name. Then give them the SAME workgoup name. You'll have to reboot now.

NOTE: If the laptop has a domain set up and you use this in work - don't change anything!

Dermot2468

i did that and it is working fine now but i am wondering is this going straight between the two comps or is it going through the internet and using up my cap

cregser

Ah your back! No you're not going over the internet. Especially if your IP address starts with 192.168.x.x. That's network talk for telling your router NOT to go over the internet.

I've to go now. But now you have to teach yourself about sharing folders. Right click the folder on the PC, goto propterties, then sharing, Share the folder, give it a name.

Then on the laptop open internet explorer or something. Then (if you named your pc "superman" and the shared folder "music", you'd type \\superman\music in the address bar.

Good luck

Dermot2468

thanks very much for all yer help i really appreciate it