Network connections

[Limbo]

I have a router with 4 ports, I have 5 PC's I would like to have access to the net. Two of the PC's have Dual Gigabit LAN controllers. Is it possible to hook 4 of them directly to the router and daisy chain the 2 that have the Dual Gigabit ports somehow? One of the 2 I want to daisy chain has Vista 64bit the other has Vista 32bit, 2 of the other 3 have XP Pro and 1 has XP Home.

[PP Mguire]

Easiest way i can think of at this very moment (not realyl in a thinking mood) is hook 4 of them up and use a crossover cable to connect the 2nd port of the gigabits.

[Limbo]

BLARGH!!! I installed the cable and ran Network Setup on the PC i have on all the time and made the disk, I ran the disk on two of the other PC's no problem. When I ran it on the PC I just connected to the last PC I installed it said that another PC had the same address and it borked my connection to the internet on that one.

[PP Mguire]

Try using a bridge or configuring the address manualy?

[Limbo]

Won't allow a Bridge due to Internet Connection Sharing, how do you manually config the addresses?

[PP Mguire]

Right click/properties/click on tcp-ip connection and click properties. Youll see what you need to do. Dont worry about DNS server n the bottom.

[Limbo]

That works in XP, I think I found a way to do it in Vista, let you know how it goes.

[Limbo]

It seems to be impossible, I can't find the net with the daisied PC. All I can see is the one it connects to. Also if I turn off the PC that it connects to it kills the LAN altogether to the daisied PC. Looks like a router with more ports is required.

[joz]

Try a spliiter, easiest way I can think off.

I have about 5 miles of cat-5 running throuh my house and about a dozen splitters. off a single 6-port. running upwards of a dozen comps, two laptops and a compq workstations. They work great.


Its the simple beige-boxes a few inches in each direction, 1 in, two out (the ones that I got.)

http://www.shoppingcentre.net/shop/10100-network-splitter-p-3793.html
http://pc.pcconnection.com/1/1/140541-hubbell-premise-wiring-rj-45-network-splitter-br851a.html

or something similar. I dont think they make the ones I used anymore though, good sturdy things, but I cant find them anymore.

[Limbo]

Decent info Joz, thanks, was not aware of those.

[PP Mguire]

Sorry i forgot you where on Vista. Im pretty new to bridges actualy and im using one for my network right now to in Vista. Splitters sound like a good idea though. Or just a bigger router. You can get a D-Link Gigabit hub for like 30 bucks or less.

[srpeters18]

On the daisy-chained comp, try setting the DNS server address to the address of the computer that is actually connected to the router. The reason you're not getting internet (assuming that you've set static IP's on your network) is because it can't resolve any addresses. Not sure if that would work straight out of the box in Vista or not, but give it a shot.

As for splitters, I would recommend against them. There's a reason they're not used in a professional environment. They don't provide any sort of collision prevention at all. Your computer will have to retransmit more packets every time it gets stepped on by one of your other boxes and depending on your network usage, could bring the whole thing to a crawl. If you can't get the daisy-chaining thing going, buy a $10 hub. It doesn't have to be a router, just a simple hub. Plug it into one port on the router, hubs are transparent so your router will still be responsible for assigning your IP addresses but you will get the collision protection.

[Limbo]

I was reading about splitters and saw what you are saying about them. I also realized that the daisy chain would only work with both PC's turned on and it isn't what I want. Are hubs the same as switches?

[PP Mguire]

No they are not. And when you use a hub make sure its hooked up to port one of your router to port one of the hub.

[Limbo]

Got talked into one of these: http://www.practicallynetworked.com/review.asp?pid=608 From what little I have read switches are "more better" than hubs.

[PP Mguire]

The problem with that though is a hub is alot cheaper and would do exactly the same as the switch for what you want to do. I have a 24port switcher and switchers are more for heavy heavy networking. Honestly, even with huge LANs i dont see a difference between my switcher and hub without looking at the advanced networking things the switcher can do. My switcher has dual gigabit uplinks, dual optical connections, trunking, and on and on. Really quite the toy.

[srpeters18]

Switches are great if you're concerned about privacy within your home network. A switch will forward a packet to the correct IP instead of broadcasting it on your network. For a home network though, you're not really going to notice much.

[Limbo]

I read about issues with hubs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_hub and I can't find the other article. Shops locally don't seem to even have them. I was probably oversold on it but I do transfer some large files between a few of the PC's and they have Gigabit LAN so it should see some use in that respect at least. The salesman told me that this requires no set up and that really appealed to me as I tend to drool and my eyes glaze over when I try to comprehend networking.

[srpeters18]

The reason you don't see many hubs anymore is because switches are almost as easy to manufacture, since there isn't a whole lot of difference. If you can't find a hub, get an unmanaged switch, which is basically a hub with a different name. Really though, if it says switch, hub, router its not gonna matter as long as its in your price range and it'll suit your needs.

[joz]

Please, DO NOT use Wikipedia as a source.

[PP Mguire]

Lol yea seriously, average joes like you and me write that.

Idk bout yall but i see hubs everytime i go to Wal Mart, Frys, Best Buy, Circuit City ect. They are the cheapest form of networking you can buy and theres nothing wrong with them. People dont like them beause they dont have a DHCP server, so no automatic IP addressing. In other words, people are either to ignorant to know what to do with them, or are to lazy to setup their own stuff.

[srpeters18]

I dare say most people buying routers and hubs at wal-mart don't have any clue what DHCP is, let alone what it does. I had a guy bring me a DSL modem and wonder how to hook it up to our network. (The satellite net I had running during deployment)

[PP Mguire]

They may not know what it is but they know it dosent work as soon as you plug it in like a router with DHCP automatic addressing. So they go off and buy something else like a Linksys broadband router. Most never even use the wifi in it :/

[MtDew]

Adding another switch would be the simplest solution. You can get an inexpensive switch for about $20US from Newegg. Here is one that I reccomend due to the cost and customer support

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124005

I have used splitters before and have ran into problems with some switches. Also if you want to add more computers later, you will then have to add more spitters.

p.s. I am ordering this switch today as it is on sale and I want to add more wired computers to my network....

[tyle6]

theres always a hub too, I just use a bricked router in spot as ahub in my house even. lol thing works great too!! i bricked the wrt54gc with a firmware flash i tryed to abort and ended up with a fully functioning 4 port wireless switch!!! I just plug it into a 80' cord and it toss's out a wireless signal the main router is able to control the IP of aswell as have all 4 hard ports functioning!

[Limbo]

Okay I will expose more of my lack of understanding of networks here. I am using a router and was wondering if I still need Windows Firewall turned on? The reason I ask is also partly due to wanting to disable ICS on all my PC's but don't understand how to do so? It seems it is on by default when Windows Firewall is turned on?

[PP Mguire]

Personaly i hate any kind of Windows Firewall and would normaly just say turn that crap off. But Vistas firewall controls a few other networking things like sharing and stuff like that so you cant turn it off. Id have to say you need to leave it on. In Vista ICS and Windows Firewall should be 2 different services though so you should be able to turn ICS off.

[Limbo]

Yup, I found the way to do it, just run Network Setup Wizard and choose "this computer connects directly to the internet". Thanks for the help all of you.