Connecting Laptop and PC

Jess11

I am connected to UTV internet Broadband which I access from my PC. Can anyone help with the following questions?

1.I’ve just bought a new laptop and want to access the internet similtaniously on my laptop and PC.

2.My kids want to play games (especially Red Alert) against each other, on the Internet I think, using both computers.

Different people have advised different things.
(a) a wireless router.
(b) A four port router.
(c) Bluetooth connections.
(d) A lan set up.
Can you explain which of these would solve both my above problems. Where is the best place to buy? How do I set them up? What exactly are each of the above used for (a) (b) (c) (d)? I know a little about them but am a bit confused.
Thanks
Jess11

Giblet

The cheapest way would be to buy two network cards, a router with a wan port and two Cat5 cables.

Red Alert might be your biggest problem if you are using WinXP

Moriarty

I'm moving this over to the Nets/Comms forum, you'll probably get more/better replies here.

SwampThing

I agree with Giblet.

UTV probably supplied you with a cable modem, which has an ethernet port.
What you now need is a NIC (network interface card) in the PC and the laptop and a 4-port ethernet hub or switch Oh, and 3 Cat5 network cables.
It's a simple enought thing to setup. Install the two NIC's, connect the PC's and the cable modem to the hub/switch - and you're away. (a little more to it, but not much).

I'm not 100% on cable modems, but if they're anything like a standard broadband modem, it''' have the ethernet port and also act as a DHCP server, which is what you want for simplicity. Someone else here will correct me on the cable modem.

So, do you have a NIC in your PC or laptop? Someone here will update about the modem capabilities. If all is as I said, a few yoyos will get the required gear and you're sorted.

This is a lan setup. You could opt for a wireless lan, but it's a little more expensive and a little tricker to setup. Bluetooth isn't an option really for this setup. As for a router, if your modem doesn't do dhcp, you may need something along those lines.

galwaydude18

If you are going to buy a four port router and setup a lan I can make you the network cables the you will require!

Mac daddy

Sorry to hijack

I was thinking about setting up roughly the same setup at home -

1- have a Ripwire from irish broad band -

Hardware already have -

2 x laptops - One wireless centrino m1.7
Work Laptop standard 10/100 intergrated nic

Shuttle intergrated 10/100 nic

Proliant Fileserver -nic pci card 10/100

I want to build a standard lan for the work laptop and the shuttle and server with a option to connect to the network with the laptop nr 1 wireless.
Laptop nr 2 is only used for a vpn connection into work at the moment.

What type of other hardware would you guys recommend for this?

Thinking of getting a switch for laptop nr 2 and proliant and shuttle attach them to this and connect the ripwire to this.

on one of the spare port i was thinking about getting a wifi router - now would i also need a wifi access point for this??

what would be the best way of setting this up?

cheers lads
kevin

Mac daddy

hmm just looking back at my post what might be a better solution is just getting 3 wireless nics and and a acces point and a wireless router - connected the ripwire to the router and the access point to the router

so 3 wireless nics -
a access point
and a router -
or this one acts as a access point and a router and three wireless nics

what do you think???

SwampThing

That'll do it nicely!

JohnnyMobile

I have set something similar up with below

1X old compaq armada laptop
1X cheap 802.11b pcmcia card
1 X copy of mandrake linux

Install linux on the laptop.
Use the inbuilt network card on the machine to plux direct into your broaband router assuming it has an ethernet port and set packet forwarding on the linux machine to push packets from one interface to the other. Set the IP address of the wifi card as the default gateway on all other wifi enabled devices you will be using and watch the traffic flow

IF you need any details let me know