Totally clueless about networking

[Angrymarshmello]

I looked through some other newbie networking posts, really didn't find what I was looking for so I'll post it here:

What do I need to network two computers together? One will be a laptop and the other my main desktop computer. At the store I see all this T-Base 10/100 cards and NIC 10/100 (or something along those lines) and I'm confused about what I need to get.

All I want to do is set up a small little LAN for file sharing, possibly internet sharing but keep it at file sharing for simplicity's sake for the time being. What type of a network card do I need (see above paragraph), and do I just hook them up with a regular CAT5 cable?

Also, I'm using Win98SE on both computers, what do I have to do to get it working software wise?

Thanks in advance!

 

[jmcoreymv]

Here Ill help out:
1. Youll need a desktop PCI nic. Ill recommend a Netgear however any should be fine.
2. Youll need a PCMCIA card for your laptop, Im not sure but I think these cost around 60 bucks.
3. Youll need a crossover cable.
4. Just connect to the two and setup your tcpip settings (which I can help you with later if you need)
5. If you want to share the internet your going to need two nics in your desktop.

There are simpler ways of doing this if you dont want to install something into your computer, for example you could buy a usb NIC. But if the computer will be directly connected without a hub or switch, then you will need a crossover cable. If you decide you ever want to add computers, youll need a hub/switch and patch cabling. Sorry my writing is kind of confusing, but its like 3 am and Im real tired.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

I'm tired too hehe

Few qs:

1) What kind of NIC? Like does all that tbase 10/100 or other stuff really matter as long as its a NIC?

2) crossover cable = cat5?

3) Why do I need two NICs to share the net?

Thanks for the help

 

[cot]

OK , the only two things I think you need to worry about with a NIC is that it is 10/100 (no reason to buy a 10 these days) and that it is the right type of slot (PCI if you have one available).

The 10/100 refers to the fact that it is dual speed. 10Megabits per second (10Mb/s) or 100 Megabits per second (100Mb/s).

A 10/100 can do either, and usually can detect which it needs to do without problems (say, if it needs to talk to an older 10Mb/s card)

I would recommend a netgear FA310TX just because I have had good luck with them (installed ~20 2 weekends ago, all worked fine). It is a PCI 10/100 NIC. Buy.com has them for cheap.

A crossover cable refers to the way it is wired to the connectors on the ends. Cat 5 is the type of wire used. Always use cat5, cat3 is the other readily available one, but it cant handle 100MB/s, and is not significantly cheaper.

A crossover cable is used to directly connect two computers. Normally you would use a hub, and straight through cables, where each NIC has a cable going to the hub in a star type layout.

Now, if you only want to connect two machines, you can forgo the hub and just connect the two NICs together with a cable, but here you need a crossover cable.

I would recommend getting a hub for future use though, they are quite cheap these days. And if you aren't poor, get a small switch, they handle congestion better than hubs and are still under $100 these days.



Finally, you need 2 NICs only if you can not get a second IP from your ISP for the laptop.

Then, you can use Network Address Translation (NAT) to make all of the traffic appear to come from one IP number. basically, you set up a separate small network that has "phony" IP numbers on it. Then, the machine with the actual internet connection translates between the phony IPs and the real one, allowing the subnetwork to have internet access. So the one machine on the net would have two NICs, one going to the local subnetwork, and the other going to the DSL/cable modem or whatever. If you are using an analog modem for the internet conection, then you only need one NIC in the machine.


If you are going this route, I would highly suggest a router.

This will handle the NAT and let you share the internet connection WITH NO SPECIAL SOFTWARE ON THE PCS. that is nice. really really nice.

also, if you had your desktop pc doing the NAT, then the desktop pc would always have to be on for the laptop to use the internet. not so with a router.

Linksys makes a nice router with a built in 4 port switch, would do you up real nice if you have DSL or cable.

any more questions? I'll try to help.

cot

 

[Angrymarshmello]

cot - you the man

Few q's for you:

1) Can you choose between 10 or 100 Mb? Like if I bought two new NICs for each computer, had a hub (or switch), would it default to 10 or 100? I really dont see why you'd want to use 10 Mb unless you had an older NIC that couldn't handle 100 Mb.

2) Difference between a switch and a hub?

3) I have a regular 56k modem (Diamond Supra Express 56iSP, its an ISA fully hardware) - so I wouldn't need two NICs to share a net connect?

4)

<< Linksys makes a nice router with a built in 4 port switch, would do you up real nice if you have DSL or cable. >>



Is that 4 port switch related to question #2's switch?

Thanks again for the help. I'm good at pretty much every aspect of computing except for networking, gotta learn somehow.

 

[jmcoreymv]

Since your a dialup user, youll only need 1 nic for both comps. If all of your equipment supports 100 mbit (The 2 NICs, the hub/switch, and you have cat 5 cable) Then it will automatically goto 100 mbit. You can set it to 10 if you want but theres really no point.

The difference between in a switch and a hub is that a hub echos all incoming requests to all ports and its backbone is shared, so if you have 5 computers sending data at the same time each will be getting 20mbit. (100/5=20) A switch on the other hand works at Layer 2 and is somewhat intelligent. First off any incoming requests are sent only to the port that it is supposed to goto, so there are less collisions which means faster transfers. Also, the backbone of the switch is the number of ports multiplied by the highest speed port, so if there are 5 ports and its a 100 mbit switch, then the backbone is 500 mbit. This means all users can transfer at 100 mbit at all times. Also a switch is full duplex whereas a hub is not, which means you can send and receive data at the same time. This all boils down to faster and more reliable transfers and these days a switch in a minimal amount more than a hub pricewise. Id recommend a Netgear FS105 or a DLink 5 port switch although any shall do.

You cant use the linksys if you have a dialup internet connection however if you want they do sell dialup gateways that essentially do the same thing but instead of using cable/dsl they use a built in modem.

 

[BCYL]

1) the NICs will automatically choose the faster setting. Say you have 2 10/100 NICs but only a 10 hub, then your NIC will communicate with using 10Mbps. But if everything is 10/100 then they will run at 100Mbps.

2) A switch can reduce collisions of data, thus it is faster than a hub. I have an idea how this works, but I am not sure if this is right, so I am not going to offer an answer here... I am sure others can answer this question...

3) No, you would not need 2 NICs to share that modem connection.

4) That is a router, which is for sharing a cable/DSL connection with only 1 IP address. You won't need a router in your case, a normal switch would be good for you if you are going to add more computers to your network.

 

[cot]

> cot - you the man

Thanks! I had to help you out, you remind me of my sister

OK, so you are correct, there is no reason to default to 10 MB/s, and they wont unless they are trying to talk to a 10MB/s device.

Get all 10/100 MB/s NICs and hubs etc. and it's 100MB/s all the way!

2) The previous posters are roughly correct, a switch will acheive higher throughput with multiple simultaneous transfers. I would quibble a bit on details, but dont want to take the time here.

3) righto, the modem does what one of the NICs would do if you had DSL or cable internet access

4) Again, as the previous poster mentioned, this would only be good if you had broadband (you DONT? Come on, get with the 00's )

Also, there are similar products that have a built in modem, like

http://www.dlink.com/products/routers/dp601m/

and

http://www.netgear.com/products/modems_routers.shtml (~$170 at buy.com)

I would really, REALLY suggest this route (hehe). No weird software to install on your machines, since both of these do NAT, all you have to do is set up the computers with the correct &quot;local&quot; IP numbers, netmask, gateway, and DNS server (directions on this will come with the router). Then, get the router set up to dial and log into your account. There will be some way to program this info into the router - my netgear DSL router has a web interface thats really straightforward.

IMO its much easier and more reliable to do it this way. Saves electricity too.

good luck!

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Thanks to jmcorey, BCYL, and cot for the help! Thats the info I needed!

cot - btw, my parents wont let me get cable/dsl yet

 

[cot]

Bummer, maybe tying up the phone line as much as possible will convince them. Or say it's for school.

 

[jmcoreymv]

RagingBITCH are you a girl?

 

[Angrymarshmello]

cot - I've tied up the phone lines for over 2 years now and it ain't happening I just bought a cell phone for an employee plan where I work so guess DSL/cable ain't happening

jm - I'll leave that up to your imagination

 

[Mday]

an important distinction to me between a hub and a switch is that a hub can only act at a single speed 100 or 10 period. if a 10 only NIC is connected, the ENTIRE network is throttled to 10. for a switch, if a 10 is connected, the network is still capable of 100, but only 10 when speaking to the 10.

so in a network with 3 pcs, one 10, 2 100\10... with a hub and all three connected and on, the entire network is 10 only, even when only the 100\10 computers talk. with a switch, in the same situation, those 100\10 computers can go at 100 between each other.

this was important when my sister only had a 10baseT ISA card. of course now she does not...

the linksys router is very nice.

 

[cot]

Hmm. Didn't think that was the case, at least from the descriptions of the Netgear hubs on their site:

http://www.netgear.com/products/ds_108/index.shtml

Full connectivity among devices

Each unit has a built-in self-learning bridge which provides the communications link between the 10 and 100 Mbps network devices. The intelligent bridge automatically manages network traffic such that 100 Mbps traffic does not unnecessarily crowd the 10 Mbps network segment and 10 Mbps traffic does not crowd the 100 Mbps segment.