Considering Networking

Samiam · #1 December 2nd, 2002, 01:07 PM

Have home grown 950Mhz Athlon on M7MKE m/b, WinME, 512Mb Ram, ATI 9000 Vid, SB Live Audio. Motorola USB cable modem (model SB4200 Surfboard) with Road Runner. Am totally ignorant relating to networking and am considering networking two computers. I'm looking at Linksys BEFSR41 v.2 router and a pair of Linksys adapters (model USB100TX) rather than cards. Can anyone point me in the right direction to prevent my going at networking the hard way? I'm not a "gamer"--I only want to be able to share my broadband connection and/or work with graphics on both computers. tia

Samiam · #2 December 2nd, 2002, 01:38 PM

Just in case it's pertinent, I have Norton System Works 2002 and Norton Personal Firewall installed on my system. I'm considering the router as opposed to a hub because of the additional security of the built in firewall by Linksys.

Samiam · #3 December 2nd, 2002, 03:00 PM

Both machines are WinME.

BadChicken · #4 December 2nd, 2002, 04:00 PM

Sounds like you are going in the right direction. A router for increased security is a good idea. You could also look at using a switch instead.

I haven't used winME but I understand that it is very user friendly in setting up a small home network.

This site also might give you some good tips. http://www.practicallynetworked.com/

mlucchesi@mmdhd · #5 January 10th, 2003, 02:38 PM

The Linksys unit that you are looking at would work very well. It does both NAT and DHCP so you would have minimum setup for the PC's . This should work well. First setup the router,then one PC, setup IP for DHCP. ( obtain IP address automatically) abd then Web into the router. Have fun.

Samiam · #6 January 10th, 2003, 03:47 PM

Situation has changed quite a bit. I've now installed Win XP on my "main" machine--2nd system is still on Win Me and will probably remain that way since my digital camera (Canon Power Shot 350) isn't compatible with XP. Too, I doubt if my copy of XP would let me install it on a second machine. I've also bought a pair of PCI NIC's (3Com 3C905C-TXM) which haven't arrived yet. Still shopping for the LinkSys Router.

Do you see a problem networking the two machines, since they're different OS? Also, I'm wondering how the folks at RoadRunner will view my sharing broadband with two machines, and if it will slow down my internet. I received an email from RR yesterday offering networking, but they want money which I've already spent on the hardware. :-)