Noob Networking question

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Noob Networking question

Postby Zep on Tue May 30, 2006 1:04 pm

My friend recently gave me his old PC. It's one of the the early Athlon XP type machines and has Windows ME installed. I want to set up a network between my main computer, which is downstairs, and the one my friend gave me which will be upstairs. I would also like to use the internet on the upstairs machine, but there are no phone lines upstairs (it's a loft conversion and we use wireless phones).

What hardware will I need exactly? I have absolutley no idea on wireless network/broadband hardware.
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Postby RabidYak on Tue May 30, 2006 4:05 pm

ADSL or Cable, Wired or Wireless, how much can you spend and can you put XP on the machine upstairs?
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Postby Silverhaze on Tue May 30, 2006 4:56 pm

Zep if you use ADSL for your internet then you want an ADSL modem/router.

That basically will split your internet signal between the PCs. I am not entirely sure about whether one of thse will allow you networking too but I would assume so if its called a router.

My current setup involves my cable modem (downstairs), ethernet wire to my router (upstairs) 3 PCs plug into that using either onboard network ports or bought ethernet boards to give me the required ports. The Xbox360 also plugs into the router using its networking port and lots of CAT5 wire all around the place.

Networking is a pretty simple process in XP. I also networked to 98 without any problems so Me should be simple enough if you setup on one of the XP machines first. I've found when networking that using the option to create a network disk works quite well.

Setup the XP machine by running the Create a home/office network wizard. Choose a suitable Workgroup name and avoid the defaults as I've had problems with these. (old names are remembered so be careful) I had to choose OFFICE for the name of my current network after it got confused because I used an old workgroup name.

Once I'd done that and run the wizard on each PC it seemed to work fine. If all you want is internet sharing that almost sets itself up!! Piss easy.


With wireless there are a few more things to consider such as speed and connection drops etc but its certainly more flexible in that you can take a laptop or any other wireless enabled bit of kit to any room.

Let us know what hardware you currently have including the intraweb hardware you're using.
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Postby Zep on Tue May 30, 2006 4:58 pm

I use BT Broadband ADSL 2.2 MBps. I'm looking to spend aboout £60 but would stretch a bit more if need be, and yes, I will probably be upgrading it to XP Home or XP Pro sometime this week. I'm guessing XP Pro has better Networking capabilities?
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Postby Silverhaze on Wed May 31, 2006 12:27 pm

Err...I think its all pretty much the same thing with XP regardless of flavour.

Look [url=http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Routers___Firewalls_417.html[here[/url]

Theres a BT router right at the top of the list but any ADSL router should work. Ive been told to avoid Linksys and know to avoid Belkin too.

So you can spend about £40 on a router and then a couple of quid on CAT5. Luckily I work for an IT company so I can get reels of CAT5 for nothing which made that part of things cheaper.

If you go wireless then I think the router should come with 4 (or however many inputs the thing has) wireless receivers to go in the PCs you are connecting. That would save on wires but then do you want a network that doesnt operate at 100mbps or are you willing to go the extra mile and get a 108mbps wireless router?
Theres also the drops in signal I've read about. Network speed seems to depend on signal strength. Theres security issues too if you dont know what you're going but theres easy ways around that with simple security settings to stop your neighbours hijacking your signal.

If you were to buy an Xbox360 you'd have to spend a further £30 - £40 on a wireless adaptor for it if you wanted to connect it to your wireless router as opposed to just another bit of CAT5.

Now that I have the netgear hard wired router I havent had a single drop in connectivity (the belkin would crash 2 or 3 times a day) and everything seems stable.

I have the Xbox360, 2 PCs running the exact same version of XP Pro and one PC running XP Media Centre Edition LAN'd up. The Media Centre PC has the Media Connect software installed to allow me to stream TV, pictures, movies and music from the PC, over the network to my Xbox so I can look at them on the TV in my bedroom. It works pretty much flawlessly and is pure simplicity itself to setup!

The 360 does slideshows of your photos but not just that....it actually does a lovely fade from pic to pic and also does thing nice slow zoom or panning effect on each picture it displays. You can also stream music at the same time so you can watch your holiday snaps in a slideshow all set to your favourite album on a TV in a completely different room and control it all from there too. Brilliant!!! I love it.
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Postby RabidYak on Wed May 31, 2006 10:18 pm

XP Home will do for basic home networking, but its bugger all use if you want to do anything clever.

If you arn't going to be running Cat5 between floors then you obviously need a router with built-in wireless and a reciver card for the machine. You'll need a network card for the machine downstairs as well if it hasent already got one. The reciever cards don't generally come withe the router, althougth you sometimes see bundles in shops.

I'd always recommend Netgear stuff for quality, althougth it is more expensive. D-Link is generally solid as well, but Belkin is cheap shite and Linksys isn't anything to write home about. You be able to scrape in at just over £60 if you buy cheap, but you'll get what you pay for and i'd recommend waiting until you've got enough to buy quality.
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Postby Silverhaze on Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:33 am

Wired is cheaper IMO and more reliable.

Because my PCs are fairly close to eachother I didnt have to do a lot of long wire running so that kept the price down but you should be able to use a Netgear hard wired network for pretty cheap. I'd be surprised if it went over £60 TBH. The routers themselves can be picked up for under £40 and if you can find a cheap source for CAT5 you're laughing.

I had to use some of those little wire holder nail things to attach some wires around the odd door frame here and there but its all discrete enough.
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Postby were on Wed Jun 07, 2006 5:54 pm

Silverhaze wrote:Wired is cheaper IMO and more reliable.

Because my PCs are fairly close to eachother I didnt have to do a lot of long wire running so that kept the price down but you should be able to use a Netgear hard wired network for pretty cheap. I'd be surprised if it went over £60 TBH. The routers themselves can be picked up for under £40 and if you can find a cheap source for CAT5 you're laughing.

I had to use some of those little wire holder nail things to attach some wires around the odd door frame here and there but its all discrete enough.


you hit the right on the button there "WIRED is more rleliable,wireless may be more conveinent buts its too unstable,depending on the NIC cards and if there is any other wireless signals where you live.

just eb cautious about wireless.Yeah easy to turn on,harder to connect to.. :wink:
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