Problems with network...

[DanDinges]

Heres the situation. First off I have comcast cable internet. I'm trying to connect two pcs through a wireless router. The pcs aren't running on wireless cards thorugh, they are just connect to the router through cables (i'm going to be buying a laptop in the future so that is why I have a wireless router). Here is how everything is hooked up.

Cable internet is plugged in from the wall to the modem. The modem is plugged into the router in the internet port. The first computer is plugged into one port on the router, and the other computer is plugged into the other port.

The internet works fine on both computers, but they won't communicate with each other. The computers won't show any other computers being connect so we can't share files or printers.

I check the IP addresses on both computers and they are the same. So I believe this is the problem. But both computers are getting the ip addresses from the ISP. How can I set this up to work correctly where both computer have the internet and I can share files and printers on both. Please help.

Thanks

[degsy]

Welcome :)

Do you have any software firewalls on the PC's?

[DanDinges]

Just windows firewall

[bAdWaYz]

Hi Dan and welcome to CTH,
I can tell you the the public ip for both computers will be the same. This is due to NAT or network address translation that takes place via the router. The internal private ip address for each computer should be different. For example if computer A has a private ip address of 192.168.1.1 then computer B. would be something like 192.168.1.2, but as I said the external or public ip address will be the same for both "normally the ip address given to you by the ISP". Now as for making both computer see each other over the LAN goes there are a few things to look for. First you can turn off the built in windows firewall on both computer "just for now to establish connection between computer". Then you need to make sure both computers have the same "workgroup" name. This name can be anything but go with something simple or use a default like "WORKGROUP" just make sure both have the same name. Next make sure that printer and file sharing is turned on for both computers. Then make sure you actually have some files or folders shared out.

[DanDinges]

How do you check and change the private ips on the computers. And are there guidelines on what they need to be?

Also everything in the TCP/IP config is set to auto.

On computer a I start/run "cmd" then "ipconfig /all" and they are identical on both computers.. All the ip, subnet, defualt gateway.

[bAdWaYz]

In the routers setup "access it via a web browser" make sure the DHCP is enabled. If dhcp is on in the router then it will hand out ip addresses for each computer.