Simple XP Network: Issues

[Quincunx]

Hey all. I have a very simple network here at home. My parents computer is connected to our Adelphia cable modem using USB. They have a patch cable running from their NIC to our 10/100 D-Link 5 port switch. From the switch runs another patch, which connects to my on board NIC. I am trying to share the internet connection but cannot seem to successfully link this all together.

I have had this setup before, and it worked. I have also had it fail before, after cables were unplugged or settings were lost, but always seemed to get it working eventually by mistake.

I've tried the windows automatic network setup wizard. Seperately on each computer, and by creating a network setup diskette on the "server" (parents computer) and then popping it in my computer and running the setup from there. Neither way seems to work, no interenet on my machine. when the setup is run I set their computer as connecting directly to the internet and mine as connecting through another computer on the network.

I've tried automatic (static) IP's, and also manually setting them. Right now they are manual. 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2. This is not working, and automatic didn't work either as of last night. The switch has power, and both lights are lighted green. (indicating a 100baseT connection) With manual IP's, I can ping my parents computer....yet their's won't ping me. Same thing with static ip's. I use the connection status window to show the static ip's. I can ping the server IP, but it still cannot ping me. It just continually times out.

I just dont understand what is wrong. usually once the connection is working, two connections show up in my Network properties window. My LAN connection and I believe, it creates a high speed internet gateway. You can't create that gateway manually though, because it wants two, non internet connections to do that on one computer.

I leave it at this for now, sorry for the long post, I just want to provide as much info as possible. By the way, can you use a USB hub to hook 1 device to multiple computers? Or are those just for hooking multiple devices to 1 computer?

 

[ColKurtz]

I haven't messed with ICS in a couple of years, but unless something has changed you need 2 NICS in your "gateway" machine to enable ICS. One NIC will be connected to the Internet, the other will be connected to your internal LAN. You say your PC and your parents are connected to the same switch. That's fine, but do you have a 2nd NIC that's connected to the cable modem? A quick google shows this link, which may or may not be helpful to you.

BTW, why not just buy a NAT router? If you monitor the Hot Deals forum here, you can get them for next-to-nothing, and are a LOT more useful and capable than ICS.

 

[Quincunx]

right now the plan is to pull in a Linksys router. Thats in the process in the trading forum. BEFSR41 is the model. I am pretty sure this will resolve my internet sharing problems.

 

[Dennis Travis]

You can do it with ICS but if you can swing the Router do it as it will work a lot better than ICS does and also give you a Hardware Firewall of sorts anyway as the Linksys BEFSR41 does not have a full SPI firewall but a Hardware firewall of any kind is better than none at all! I have that router and it's a snap to set up.

 

[Kelemvor]

Best thing to do is NOT use the USB connection to the cable modem. Does the modem have Ehternet capability or are you stuck using the USB? Pick up any old router and plug that into the Ethernet port on the cable modem, then plug the computers into the router and that will fix all your problems.

 

[Quincunx]

yep, in the process. The modem DOES have ethernet capability, so i'll be able to plug them all right in once I nab a router. Thanks for the support on the router though, glad to hear people have such good success. Probably should have bought one a long time ago.