newtorking help

does anyone here know anything about home networking?

because my mom wants me to network our 2 home computers up to the same cable modem, and im a total :newlayer: with networks. i tried to find some info on the internet but it was all confusing and i have no way of knowing if they are talking about the same thing i want to do or not.

if someone could help steer me in the right direction (what to buy, what i need to do, etc.) that would be great.

the easiest way would be to go out and buy a linksys or any other brand router, and then 2 cat5 cables (assuming u already have one for the cable modem) long enough to reach the router from where each computer is. then you just plug the cable modem into the router, and then connect the other 2 cat5 cables, each coming from one computer, into the router and then setup ISPs info inside the router and it should be working. that's what i did, works great for me

if you need any help just email or IM me it really is simple once you understand it.

ok well i dont really know what a router is, but i think if i found that out i would pretty much understand how to do it.

do i have to pay my ISP for another IP address? someone told me i do

Have you ever used a cable (TV) splitter? A router basically does the same thing. You run the cable (for the internet) into the router, and the router handles sending the signal out to each machine. Just drop a network card in each (well, of course 1 already has 1 if you have a cable modem hooked to it), then get another cat5 like mentioned above, run it from the router to the other computer. Run the original cat5 from the current computer into the back of the router as well.

And no, you won't need to pay for another IP.

I hope that made sense. I just woke up. :o

yeah actually that helps alot.

how about running the wires...how the heck do i do that. the 2 computers are all the way across the house

edit: by the way, i just realized since the other computer used to be hooked up to the cable, it already has the Network card, so im saved on that part. i just gotta wire them up to the router.

ok so ive decided how im hooking it up, now what do i need to do to the old computer to make it run off of this, i.e. i have to give it a new IP address, right? if so, how do i know what to make it?

cat5's come pretty long. I hooked a couple of my buddy's comps together, and they're on either end of a 3 bedroom house.

The router will/should come with instructions.

ok new plan.

i went to get a router + 100ft CAT5 + 3 ft CAT5 + a connector, and the total was 190 bucks. my mom is not going to spend that much so heres my second idea.

when the cable guy came to our new house, he left an extra cable modem (forgot to take it). now my question is, does a cable modem hook into just a regular cable outlet, or does it have to be some special one. because if it can be any cable outlet im just going to hook that one up and see what happens.

will the cable company be able to tell we are using 2 modems or what? i didnt want to do it this way, but 190 bucks is too much according to madre.

well, then madre is most likely going to be stuck with one computer with the modem. if you use another cable modem, you need to buy another IP address.

there are two other ways. first way is to just use a hub and by an extra IP address.

the second way is to use one of the computers as the host computer. im not 100% how this is setup but i remember reading into it a bit and one computer connects through the computer that is setup with the cable modem and they can both use it that one. the host computer would need to have two NICs (network interface cards) in order to do it this way. along with the cables.

The broadband router is the easiest way.... bummer on the financial backing

You can just run a 'hub' (~$40-50), to network the stuff, then run a NAT software on one of the PC's (Network Address Translation). It's a bit of a pain to set up, but seems to run okay with most stuff. I had a problem with the NAT not supporting identd for mIRC, so I invested in the router.