Advise on a home network. Please help

[Smurk]

I'm a complete newbie to networking, so please help me out.
What I want is :
3 PC's sharing files 1 printer and 1 cable internet connetion.
Do I need a hub and/or switch?
where and how do I plug the internet connection in? Where do I plug my printer in??

I already have 1 3com nic (3c905c-TX)

Thx



Who laughs last,
dies too.

 

[Ausm]

First off, I need to know what Os's you are going to be running in order to give you a complete answer.

Did You a cablemodem provided by the cable company?

That will be a start.


Ausm

 

[Howard]

Assuming you have a cable modem:

You'll need a hub/switch/router, but I think you'll have to purchase separate IP addresses for each extra computer (2 in your case). You'll need 3 lengths of cord that looks the same as the one that came with your cable modem.

With Windows ICS (Internet Connection Sharing), if the computer that has the connection isn't on, then the others connected to it won't have a connection to the Internet.

I'll have to ask somebody else for more info.

 

[Smurk]

I will get a cable modem from my provider soon, so I don't know the type yet. I'm running on Win 98. System is:

Asus Cusl2
128 Cas 3 kingston Ram
Maxtor ATA 100 40,9 GB 7200 RPM
Aopen 40x cdrom
Plextor ide 8x4x32
Soundblaster Platinum
onboard video (will upgrade soon, GF1/2 or MX or All in W radeon)
3com nic 3c905c-TX
33k3 modem (for use as network fax)

 

[Smurk]

bump

 

[Warrenton]

Of course you need 3 NICs. Also you will need some sort of router, be it ICS, linux, win2k, or a dedicated cable/dsl router. The router is to share.

To give you an idea of what mine looks like, albeit complicated as heck, for reasons (mainly practice!) here is my network:

http://www.mt.net/~cfrisch/network.gif

That image has the layout of my network.

 

[lowtech1]

You will need 5 NICs, or 3 NICs and a hub.

One puter running gateway/proxy service and others will share that puter internet connection and resources. It is best to add File and Printer service to the proxy server, because you have centralize services and resources with will speedup your network and ease of file management.

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/guides/ics

http://dccnet.tucows.com/share95.html

 

[DazedAndConfused]

Get A DSL/Cable Router Hub and 1 Nic fo each computer. I am not sure how the Linksys Cable Router works But I do know They allow for four computers to be connected to it. Also it handles the proxy service in the hardware so only one IP is needed for the internet connection.

 

[Smurk]

Thx guys.

Any other sugestions? Should I use 10/100 nic's or are 10's good enough?
----------------------------------
Asus Cusl2
128Mb Cas 3 kingston Ram
Maxtor ATA 100 40,9 GB 7200 RPM
Aopen 40x cdrom
Plextor ide 8x4x32
Soundblaster Platinum
onboard video (will upgrade soon, GF2 or MX or All in W radeon)
3com nic 3c905c-TX
33k3 modem

Who laughs last,
dies too.