Is it possible to connect 3 computers without network hub or switch (NIC only)?

[Charles]

Is it possible if I use 2 NICs in each computer and connect them to each other?

 

[Viperoni]

I think 1 computer would need 3 nics, and the others just 1 NIC

So it would be like a server...but it would be a lot easier to setup with just 2 nics + hub

 

[BoberFett]

3 NICs? What would the third NIC connect to? Besides, 2 in one machine and one in the others wouldn't work easily. The machine with multiple NICs would have to be running routing software in order for machines 2 and 3 to talk to each other in that case. If they didn't need to talk, only access machine 1 then you could go 2,1,1 NICs. Otherwise, 2 NICs in each machine would let all machines talk to each other. But at that point, just get yourself a darn hub.

 

[Charles]

That's a one possible solution. What about 2 NICs in a computer and 1 NIC in each other computers?

Update:
BoberFett posted his reply while I was replying
I think buying a hub is a better solution.

 

[Noriaki]

Yeah bober's got it right.

One machine has two NICs and the other two have 1 each, but then you need special software on the machine with two nics so all 3 can work together. If you put 2 NICs in each machine and fully crosswire them then that should work....it's kind of hard to manage though I think...I saw it once briefly (though it was 4 machines and 3 NICs each...I think it was suppose to be a joke becuase he has a hub, but he did it that way anyhow) I'd just get a hub or a switch.

 

[beat mania]

Yes you can do w/o hub or switch. It is called coax. and it isn't terribly fast. but you'd only need 1 NIC in each computer,so that's a plus.

 

[Noriaki]

But you'd need NICs that support COAX.
Most good new NICs I've seen are only RJ45/Ethernet....maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.
But Coax is an option I suppose, not terribly fast, but unless you plan to frequently move movies between machines you probably don't need 100BaseTX

 

[fargus]

You won't find newer Nics that support coax- but you can find them used for little or no cash... probably will all be ISA cards too, PCI with 10base2 is unusual.
Adaptec and a few other vendors do make nic cards with multiple RJ45 ports (2 to 4), but more pricey than buying a cheap little hub!

Plus with multiple nics you have to worry about stuff like IP forwarding, etc- with a hub you don't need to route in the PC's.

 

[jeans2nd]

Why can't you use peer to peer networking?

 

[Hanpan]

It can be done it's just very difficult and failure rate is high. Hubs are cheap anyways.
I'd just shell out a couple of bucks for a cheap hub. YOur time is worth more.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I used to use coax for my network a while ago ..

i used to have a linksys 10bt combo card with coax and cat5 connectors ...


coax is slow, innefficient, and not really worth setting up. I did this back before one could find a hub for under 200 bucks ... and at the time i had one pc ... and my best friend had one pc ... and we wanted to lan .. .because well ... 28.8 gaming sucked, and serial port gaming was quite slow ...

if you decide to use coax .. you will need to get coax cable .. and terminators (usually 75 ohm if i remember correctly)

it would make much more sens to just pick up a cheap 10 or 100 BT hub and use cat5 cable ...

 

[beat mania]

Yeah well back then nothing was fast anyway...

 

[Rankor]

Well, it was fast for Doom, Doom 2, Quake, Duke 3D, NetMech and MercNet.

Dlink and Dlink OEM makes 10BT-combo cards in both ISA and PCI flavors.

(10Base2) setup was decent and it didn't require a hub and I've used this setup for 5 years at home. At least until recently, I needed to transfer files from 600 mb - 1 gig a pop. Then it became a hassle.

I then grabbed some Dlink 10/100 PCI NICs, some Cat5, and a 5 port switch. All is right with the world again.