Hooking up 2 computers?

[ATCR250R]

I am trying to figure out if I can put my mac computer in my room and wire the roadrunner from the one I am on now to it. If anyone knows how to do this please let me know, I am getting frustrated. :D Thanks!

[danteross77]

I am trying to figure out if I can put my mac computer in my room and wire the roadrunner from the one I am on now to it. If anyone knows how to do this please let me know, I am getting frustrated. :D Thanks!


Well if you plan on using a wired connection, get your self and ordinary DSL/Cable router. Unplug everything shutdown both the PC and MAC. Hook up all your wires plug the cable into the DSL modem. Plug the modem in and let it get a signal (about 2 minutes) then plug in your router, wait a few minutes and then boot up your PC and Mac. You should be connected now. You must reset everything and let the router assign the 2 computers and new IP address. The mac will take care of everything for you as long as you follow these directions.

[ATCR250R]

Thanks for the info. i am going to be trying to do some work on the mac later tonight. I am trying to restore all the stuff but I dont know why the disk drive wont open!!! LOL THANKS AGAIN!

[ScottZJ]

Just get you a cheap 4-5 port hub/router (they are usually like 25$) and plug your cable from your RR or DSL into the hub, then plug the other cables into it for 4-5 more hook ups. I have 30 ports hot in my house and it works great. Using a Hub, you will not need to configure it or assign IP addresses. This will just split the connection for other computers.

[250Roger]

Do you have a wireless router/modem?
If so, use the airport in the mac to hook up wirelessly.
To do so, configure the airport as follows:
1. apple menu, system preferences, network.
2. make new location from drop down menu, name it (whatever you want).
3. from show dropdown, select airport. make sure you are using DHCP, apply now.
4. click wireless icon, enter password (usually found on modem).
5. enter a "$" sign then wep (from modem).
6. you should be connected wirelessly.

[danteross77]

Thanks for the info. i am going to be trying to do some work on the mac later tonight. I am trying to restore all the stuff but I dont know why the disk drive wont open!!! LOL THANKS AGAIN!
Is it a G3 or G4 or G5? A G3 all you do is drag the disc icon on you desktop to the trash and your drive will open, the G5 you can do it that way or there is an open button on your keyboard.

[troy]

See this is why i would love to have a MAC, it does every thing for you. It really brings the whole Plug and play thing to life, unlike P.C you have to sit here and reconfiger this and that.

Right now i'm running two computers of one Internet connection, also both are linked to each other. I just bought a simple 4 port D-Link ethernet broadband router/with advance firewall, went from my cable modem LAN to the Router WAN and then port one to computer one and port two to computer two. Run the Lovely Microsoft home networking (any thing but lovely that is) and i was done. Problem is from time to time i lose connection between both computers sharing the hard drives.:wondering

[atctim]

Remeber this. If you have a Satic IP from your ISP you will need a router - not a hub!

[86tri-z270]

well depending on the type of interenet you use (cable or dsl) ... u will need to decide whether to use a hub... or a router ... a router makes it so that u can share 1 ip with 2 computers... a router creates a static connection which makes it impossible for the service to notice... all in all.... they may be able to charge you for 2 connections if you use a router... and they will never notice with a hub

[atctim]

well depending on the type of interenet you use (cable or dsl) ... u will need to decide whether to use a hub... or a router ... a router makes it so that u can share 1 ip with 2 computers... a router creates a static connection which makes it impossible for the service to notice... all in all.... they may be able to charge you for 2 connections if you use a router... and they will never notice with a hub

Wrong,

A router takes the IP from the service provider and gives out (invisible to the real world behind the router) IP'S to the computers hooked to it (normally 192.168.X.X or 172.16.X.X) They are invisible to the real outside world behind the router.

To use a hub (or a so called "dumb" device) the computers both need to have a static IP that do not change. The hub then passes all info to both computers and the one that did not request it just dumps it.

Hubs just pass thru information. Routers route the info to the computer that requested it. Routers can be set to dynamically assign IP addresses or you can set them static in the IP range of the router.

[troy]

my isp is a dymatic ip, a router will take the one ip adress from your cable modem/dsl modem and turn it into a internet gate way in the router. Alowing two or more computers to share one connection. example

these are examples below

ISP ip adress 123.456.7.9 (before router)

after router 192.128.0.100 first computer
192.128.0.101 second computer
192.128.0.102 third computer

So on and so forth as each computer get added to the router.

As for a hub, as hub is used to connected many computers together up to 20 or more. The problem with using a hub or switch is you have to have 1 internet gate way on the hub. This computer is knowen as the server, controlls the printers, internet, logons ect ect. the server is connected to the internet by a network card directly in the server, the hub is also connected to this server by a second network card being installed into this computer. Then all the rest of the computer are connected to the hub, adding ICS (internet shared connection) and hard drive/cd-rom, file sharing.

[TimSr]

If you use a hub for Roadrunner, only one computer may access the internet at a time. Use a router, and both can access at the same time. Been there, done that, doing that. Im using the cheap Linsys router that came with my Vonage internet phone service that replaced my standard phone service here. Roadrunner - $45, Vonage Phone service - $15 for 500 hours, no long distance in US and Canada. The old Sprint local phone service that I had removed - $58. Makes me wonder why anyone would use dialup.....

[troy]

If you use a hub for Roadrunner, only one computer may access the internet at a time. Use a router, and both can access at the same time. Been there, done that, doing that. Im using the cheap Linsys router that came with my Vonage internet phone service that replaced my standard phone service here. Roadrunner - $45, Vonage Phone service - $15 for 500 hours, no long distance in US and Canada. The old Sprint local phone service that I had removed - $58. Makes me wonder why anyone would use dialup.....

Let me guess, when you tryed running both computers off the internet at the same time, windows came up with a pretty little error saying, "IP conflic"one of the two computers...:D Or one would work and the other just didn't do anything

Being down that road to.

[TimSr]

No, actually got no errors displayed other than the typical explorer error for a nonexistant web address. Roadrunner just simply doesnt allow the 2nd one to connect, unless you disconnect the first one. By the way Roadrunner does not charge for additional connections. RR phone support told me I needed a router instead of the hub I had been using for my in-house network.

[deathman53]

I am using a router, 2 computers and a wireless laptop, all are connected/share the hard drives and can use the modem at the same time, the Ip service can tell if you have a router, they have told me to disconnect it, when I called about the internet being slow.

[Erics350x]

im running two without any router . just a cat5 from pc to pc then the cable modem is hooked up via usb.

[TimSr]

im running two without any router . just a cat5 from pc to pc then the cable modem is hooked up via usb.

Are you on Roadrunner?

[troy]

im running two without any router . just a cat5 from pc to pc then the cable modem is hooked up via usb.

Gotta be useing a crossover cable for this,

i had at one time this done. from the cable modem's usb to the computer and then from the network card to a switch and then from the switch to the second computer

[Erics350x]

Are you on Roadrunner?
Nope, the're just hooked directly together with the cable and the host is hooked to the cable moden via usb. Works great. I got a 75ft. cat5 cable off ebay for like $10.00 . The only thing is the host computer has an aftermarket network card from walmart. For some reason it wouldnt work like this using the intergrated network plug on my mainboard. Then again im no computer wiz so i might have been doin something wrong . But, if you just linking two pc's it's by far the cheapest and easyest way to go. I got the idea from microsofts web site awhile back. Everyone told me it wouldnt work. And no im not using any switch.

[TimSr]

Nope, the're just hooked directly together with the cable and the host is hooked to the cable moden via usb. Works great. I got a 75ft. cat5 cable off ebay for like $10.00 . The only thing is the host computer has an aftermarket network card from walmart. For some reason it wouldnt work like this using the intergrated network plug on my mainboard. Then again im no computer wiz so i might have been doin something wrong . But, if you just linking two pc's it's by far the cheapest and easyest way to go. I got the idea from microsofts web site awhile back. Everyone told me it wouldnt work. And no im not using any switch.

Im not sure if you read the whole thread, but the person who started the thread is trying to be able to access Roadrunner from two different computers at the same time. Are you saying that simply plugging a network cable from one PC to the other PC will allow him to do that?

[ScottZJ]

Yeah sounds like if that is the case, they are trying to set up a Peer to Peer network, which I dont care nothing about hehe. Easier to run it thru a hub then a router (in my case for tons of connections). Its just plug an play and can have as many computers as you can connect.

[Erics350x]

Im not sure if you read the whole thread, but the person who started the thread is trying to be able to access Roadrunner from two different computers at the same time. Are you saying that simply plugging a network cable from one PC to the other PC will allow him to do that?
like i said im no pc wiz . why couldnt you link the two together the way i did then hook the host to the roadrunner? and no i didnt read it all or overlooked that part..lol

[3 weelin geezer]

im running two without any router . just a cat5 from pc to pc then the cable modem is hooked up via usb.


how did you get this to work?? I tried that to share my music files onto the laptop and it wouldn't recognize it or nuthin. I figgered it would come up as an extra drive or two depending which screen you look at. I had limited success with the 'shared' folder .

[holmstrom]

i dont have road runner. So i dont know if it will work for you. i have cable and i have 2 computers on my network without a hub or router. I have 2 network cards in the host and one in the client. one network card goes to the cable modem and the other to the clients network card. You cant use a regular cable to connect them. Follow this link to make your crossover cable. http://makeitsimple.com/how-to/simple.htm and you on.

[troy]

If you try to hook both computers up together using a standard CAT 5 network cable it will not work. If you use a cross over CAT 5 cable it will work...But you have to ask your self this, will you ever need to have more then two computers hooked up to the same internet connectiion?....i went with the the cross over cable idea for a while but when i started to need my Deejaying computer connected to the internet along with the other two i had to invest in a router. See there up sides and down sides to both crossover cable and routers.

Crossover cable, your limited to two computers unless you start daisy chain them together WHICH becomes more of a pain then good. the plus side very cheap way to go. two network cards in the main computer hosting the internet (knowen as the server) , one for the modem and the second card for the secondary computer. Also with this you have to set up a internet gate way on windows. Not hard to do now that windows xp intergated this into there new O/S, simple few clicks of the mouse and your done.

Router, up to 4 or more computers can share the same internet connection AND peer to peer sharing, Also like mine, it has a WICKED fire wall protection that works great with zone alarms. The down side can be a bit tricky when forwarding ports for stuff like, bittorrent downloads, file share though msn. But most of the time the software that needs to have internet access will tell you how to do it. My zone alarm software with set the ports up for me (most of the time). some times i have to manualy do it my self.. But the best thing about it is it almost 100 percent Plug and play, Or plug it in hook it up and forget it.

This is my 2 cents, it's up to you how you want to do it:) but going with a broadband router will save you time and money.