Home Networking Kits?

Gunn4r

Just got a laptop and wanna get a network kit to :
-connect it to my desktop (games and file sharing)
-take it with me to connect to other laptops for gaming etc. (so a kit where one card is a hub is not an option

Anyone recommend a nice easy kit? I really only need one network card and a hub although I am sure most come with two cards ;-)

Any advice would be great, or if anyone has any old kit to sell me great too!

Bard

I seem to remember PC World in Blanchardstown doing a good deal on those kits- they're worth a try.

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Bard

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Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Stephen

It would be useful to have a hub if he was planning to add another machine to the network in future or something. Especially when he mentions gaming - if a few friends wanted to bring their machines around

Xterminator

Hi,

Maplins have a home network kit , just a little over £50 smackers if I remember (Jervis St, Dublin City centre)
2 cards and a hub

To play games on its best to have a hub!
Some (most)games wont work on direct cable connection, and a crossover cable tween 2 nics while cheap, wont allow a 3rd mate join in.

Gunn4r

Thanks! I will prolly for got the maplins one as I may need more than 2!

Thanks all

Kali

Have you already got a network card for the laptop? how much do those go for these days? (need to get one myself)

beaver

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Xterminator:

To play games on its best to have a hub!
Some (most)games wont work on direct cable connection, and a crossover cable tween 2 nics while cheap, wont allow a 3rd mate join in. </font>

How do games know the difference between a crossover cable and a hub?

-Ross

Skeptic1

Any game that can be played over the internet can be played using direct cable connection. Just make sure you have TCP/IP running on both machines.

po0k

Alot of Laptops ahvea 10MBit ethernet port built in allready. Kinda handy.
U might not need a PC Card (not PCI cards)
U can also daisy chain serial links for upto 4 i think, but it gets sow comlicated and un-reliable. I ahve to buy a cheap 100MBit hub, 8 or 4 ports. Will it be able to switch down to 10MBit even if it doesn't say so on th spec sheet? or even run the network at 100MBit and just let teh 10MBit pc take in 10MBit a second. This is one area of networking that I'm fuzzy on.
is a plain 100MBit card the same as a 10/100MBit card?

tobi

I just brought a network starter kit during the week. Easy setup and a good price too. Might be what you're after.

Skeptic1

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by [FCA]SyxPak:
I ahve to buy a cheap 100MBit hub, 8 or 4 ports. Will it be able to switch down to 10MBit even if it doesn't say so on th spec sheet? or even run the network at 100MBit and just let teh 10MBit pc take in 10MBit a second. This is one area of networking that I'm fuzzy on.
is a plain 100MBit card the same as a 10/100MBit card?</font>

AFAIK, if you plug a 10Mbit card into a 100Mbit hub, the whole thing switches down to a 10Mbit hub. You can still plug in other 100Mbit cards but they run as 10Mbit cards in this situation. It should say 100/10Mbit on the box or spec of the hub but I think all of them have this behavior.




[This message has been edited by Skeptic1 (edited 15-06-2001).]

jd

surely with two pc's you can cut out the hub and just use a crossover cable

smoke.me.a.kipper

i have 2 desktops and a laptop connected in a network. i just installed each card and plugged them together and boom, it worked.

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">"Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one"</font>

beaver

Why would you bother buying a hub if you've only got two machines?

Just get a crossover cable and a NIC for the desktop machine. Assuming you've got a PC Card NIC for the laptop...

-Ross