Thinkpads Forum

I have what I think is a simple question and wondered if someone could enlighten me a bit. At home, only one computer (Thinkpad). Wireless 4-port router (Dlink) and a separate DSL modem (also Dlink).

I want to introduce a second computer (four year old Athlon running XP Pro).

Now, I'm not terribly interested in hooking the second computer up to the router, so I thought I would just connect the Thinkpad to the second computer using a cross-over Ethernet cable.

Here's my question: since the THinkpad is wirelessly connected to the router, thus giving me internet access, can I also have an ethernet cable simultaneously connecting the Thinkpad and the second computer? Am just worried that the Thinkpad can only handle one connection (ie., wireless or wired) at a time.

I'm totally new at networking - just browsing around now using Google.

David

It is much simpler to hook the new computer up to the D-Link router. It appears that the router is working (your ThinkPad is hooked up to it). Just plug the new computer into one of the available ports and it should be good to go. ... JD Hurst

JD is right it will be the simple way, however, if you connect crossover to the the desktop you will have to go to the LAN properties of each machine and plug in a static IP address, use an address like 10.10.1.3, not in the same subnet of your router as this may interfere with you internet connection. Do an ipconfig on your thinkpad and see what the ip address is for your wired connection. If it is in the 192.x.x.x use the subnet above for your two static ip's. You may need to turn off windows firewall on the desktop.

In order for that to work, you will have to enable internet connection sharing. And I think thats a big pain in the butt in comparison to just dragging a netwrok cable or spending $15 on a second wireless network card for that computer to connect directly to your router. Not to mention your laptop will have to be on in order for the computer to get internet access.

Actually internet connection sharing is not that difficult with xp, just right click on the adapter you want to share, select advanced and check the boxes, reboot your machines. If you do that disregard the static ip setup i explained earlier. Just make sure your adapter are set to "obtain ip address automatically"

Thanks - was going to go for this sub-forum initially but wasn't sure.

Thanks for the tips, folks. The second machine need not have internet access, but in reading the replies I think I might give networking a go and see if I can actually get it to work by doing what jd is suggesting. Something I've always wanted to learn.

Kyo - thanks for the tip on the static IP if using cross-overs - didn't know that.

All of this probably won't happen for a week or so, but wish me luck...

I would add, in order to demonstrate my lack of experience, that when I got a new Brother laser printer for the house, which was networkable, I tried to set it up on the network using the instructions provided but, in the end, I gave up and went with the standard USB connection.

Connecting an actual computer should be oh-so *fun*

In a home network (without a server) the printer network device needs software on the computer to make it work. I use a LinkSys print server and the server came with an install CD that I install on each computer. The main computer can set the IP address of the network device and the gateway, and then the computer printer is established as a network printer. That is roughly how the Brother should work. They may have the software I spoke about available on their website.
... JD Hurst

hi

my advice is(I did it many times):

1. cable from your broadband provider connect to Dlink-ADSLModem
1a. if your Dlink-ADSLModem has router,and wireless router then
1b. configure everything to wireless connection (less cables=less troubles)
1c. don't forget to secure your wireless signal

2.connect Dlink-ADSLModem to DlinkRouter

3.look at 1b,1c

it's very easy and you'll have lot of fun using your computers without cables

Regards

In regards to setting up the printer, if it has a nic you can plug into it via ethernet cable, most network printers have the ability to be configured by the web browser in your PC.
Print out a status page from the printer menu, check out if it has dhcp capabilities, also see what the current ip address is if it has one. If it has dhcp enabled you can plug it in to your router, turn it on and it will pull an ip address and subnet mask, default gateway etc. Print out another status page and see what ip address the router gave it and plug that address into your web browser, just type in that address ex. 192.xxx.xxx.xxx hit enter, you can configure a lot of the printer settings there.

If it does not have dhcp capability, you can input an ip address manually through the printer menu by pushing a whole lot of buttons, the manual will describe that procedure.

When you get an ip address into the machine and can ping it with success install your print driver, install it as a local printer, uncheck search automatically for my printer, select create a new port, from the drop down menu select standard tcp/ip port, the add port wizard will apppear, type the ip address of the printer in the top box, hit next, select the network card of the printer, etc. Apply the new port, and follow the rest of the printer wizard.

This will enable you to print directly from your computer to the printer with network speed.

Thanks, JD and Kyo - that's helpful. I may give it another go when the second computer gets hooked up.

The Brother did indeed come with detailed instructions on how the network setup should be done (using their software and all) but for some reason my install didn't quite go the way it said it should.

Anyway, once I get all this sorted, I'll post my experiences here. Let's see just how network-friendly Windows is for the novice...

DavidNZ wrote:The second machine need not have internet access,...

You'd be surprised. If you have anti-virus and/or third party firewall software (recommended but not mandatory; I use the McAfee suite which has a firewall and a/v in one nice control center), often these applications need to download updates from the 'Net. Now, licensed versions of some, allow you to configure a workstation to get updates from a system on the local (home) LAN. I've done that; an always-on mail/print/firewall system downloaded a/v updates in the wee dark hours, put them on a share, and 2-3 other computers would get them from that. But if you''re not that canny, or use something like the freeware version of, say, AVG antivirus, you have to do updates from their Web site. So....

But if you''re not that canny, or use something like the freeware version of, say, AVG antivirus, you have to do updates from their Web site.

My free AVG can be updated either over the internet or from a folder. The trick is finding the folder which is found in Documents and settings-->All Users-->Application Data (which is normally hidden). The update files are downloaded to the Grisoft-->AVG7data-->upd7bin folder

OK, had a go. Took the second computer, plugged it into the router. No problem. Had to tell the router, though, that MAC address trying access it was legit (like most, I use MAC filtering on the router, as well as WPA).

So, that's about it. Simple home network. The problem is figuring out how (or whether) I can add two other 3.5 drives to the box. I think it's possible, but investigating it.

Just an update...