win xp

[cazador]

I have xp on my desktop and laptop. (both legal) and decided to network them. Well, I went and bought a Cat 5E cable plugged it in to both fired em up and both have the network icon in the tray with a red X and the balloon says: Local Area Connection...a network cable is unplugged. I tried to run the wizzard and it still says the same thing. In properties it says that the device(network card) is enabled and working properly. I'm lost.

Desktop is a Hewlett Packard PII400 with a "3Com EtherLink XL 10/100 PCI TX NIC"
The laptop is a Compaq Armada PII333 with a "Compaq NC3161 Fast Ethernet NIC"

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!!
DR

 

[Scarpozzi]

Most likely your network cable is a patch cable. You'll need to use a crossover cable and as far as Cat5E, I'd just stick with standard 5 since that E only raises the sticker price with no benefit for 98% of clients that use networking... Good luck.

 

[speed01]

You need a crossover cable to connect the 2 NICs together. A straight cable isn't going to work, That would be like having both lanes of a freeway on the same side, lots of collisions and nothing gets through.

 

[cazador]

thanks!! I'll trade it in tomorrow.

 

[Gh05tface]

If you're not using a hub/switch/router to connect the PC's you need to use a cross-over cable.