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How do I network?

Smike

Master Poster
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Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Messages
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I have 2 p.c's both with win95. They have network cards, and i can get a network cable. However, i know nothing about networking. Can anyone help? What else do i need software/hardware wise.

P.S The p.c's aren't and don't need to be connected to the internet.

P.P.S It would be nice if the printer could be included as well.
 
The FAQ should give you all the answers, but as there's a lot there; here is what you should be looking for.

1. Buy a crossover network cable and connect the two computers together.
2. Configure the network adapters with two IP addresses and subnet masks :

e.g.
PC1 : 10.1.1.1
PC2 : 10.1.1.2
Subnet mask : 255.255.255.0

3. Reboot the PCs - you should now be able to see each PC from the other and set up other network services.

(If you want to attach other devices to the network, you'll need to get a small hub or switch which should cost about £30 and some normal network cables (a few pounds each). Then each device plugs into the hub/switch.)
 
I would go with getting a cheap switch. Did that for my folks, and it cost virtually nothing. Two patch leads and a switch is all you need.

A crossover cable would do the job, but I've always preferred having a hub of some sort. Makes me feel warm inside.

Cheers,
Rat.
 
Smike said:
P.P.S It would be nice if the printer could be included as well. [/B]
Click to expand...

As stated, you can do all this with a little knowledge and a 10Base-T crossover cable you can get at Best Buy or Radio Shack.

If you ever plan on hooking up to the internet and you'd like to share a single connection, or maybe you just get a warm fuzzy feeling from a hardware solution, I picked up one of these for about $50 and it'll do everything you want plus offer NAT to share a single internet connection. This model even has a print server built in. Mine shares my cable modem between my PC, girl's PC, and the TiVo.

http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?sec=Products&pg=Product-Details&prod=67&site=c

-CJ
 
Smike said:
I have 2 p.c's both with win95. They have network cards, and i can get a network cable. However, i know nothing about networking. Can anyone help? What else do i need software/hardware wise.

P.S The p.c's aren't and don't need to be connected to the internet.

P.P.S It would be nice if the printer could be included as well.
Click to expand...

The Cross over cable should work fine, however sharing the printer, I don't know about. You would not have any problems with win98 or higher os, but I don't know what type of print/file share capabilities win95 had. (to share a printer in Win98 set it up on one system and make it a shared recourse).
 
Okay. I decided to go for the crossover solution. I got the the cable (I made it myself!), plugged it into the PC's, turned them on, did the obvious stuff and.....

They won't talk to each other. :(

The cable works. I tested it with a wonderful cable testing thingy.

I suspect I simply havn't installed it correctly. I went to control panel, then networks, added the drivers etc., and did it the way the Win95 book suggests.

However, I think this means that both PC's think that they are clients, and so are looking for a server.

Looking back, iain said:

2. Configure the network adapters with two IP addresses and subnet masks :

e.g.
PC1 : 10.1.1.1
PC2 : 10.1.1.2
Subnet mask : 255.255.255.0

3. Reboot the PCs - you should now be able to see each PC from the other and set up other network services.
Click to expand...

But what does this mean? What do i physically have to do?

Assume that i have no technical knowledge of computers.

(and no sarky comments about taking PC back to shop - 'to stupid to own a computer')
 
Did you make sure you made a crossover cable? It is important to use this special type of cable unless you go through a switch/hub/router/etc.

--Edit; a crossover cable switches the transmit and recieve wires between the computers so you aren't transmitting to the other computer's transmit connections instead of its receive connections. But don't ask me which wires to swap! ;)
 
Smike said:
Okay. I decided to go for the crossover solution. I got the the cable (I made it myself!), plugged it into the PC's, turned them on, did the obvious stuff and.....
Click to expand...

You made it yourself?

Are you sure we're talking 'ethernet' cable here? (I think the jack is called an RJ45.)

Smike said:
I suspect I simply havn't installed it correctly. I went to control panel, then networks, added the drivers etc., and did it the way the Win95 book suggests.
Click to expand...

When you are installing drivers, make sure you specify TCP/IP protocols. (I believe its under control panel/settings/network.)

The IP addresses that someone mentioned earlier are also entered in the control panel/settings

Once you have that done, you can test your connection using the 'ping' command.... (Ping sends a short message to another computer to see if it can be found...)

- Open up a 'control panel' window
- On the first machine, type: ping 10.1.1.2
- On the second machine, type: ping 10.1.1.1
This will tell you 2 things... if you have the correct communication protocols installed (otherwise ping won't work at all), and if both machines can communicate (otherwise ping will keep sending messages and get no response, like if the cable isn't working.)
 
Assuming that the hardware works I've usuually found that the reason they can't 'see' each other is that the workgroup names are different and / or neither machine has any resources shared.

You can set the worgroup name in the id tab in the network properties. You can share a disk drive by right clicking on its icon and sharing it.

Hope this helps.
 
To adjust the network settings in Windows 98, you need to go in to

Start -> Settings -> Control panel -> Network

Click on the File and Printer sharing button. Check the option(s) you want. Make sure your Windows 95 disk is handy if the cab files aren't installed on your machine.

Now, scroll down till you see Tcp/ip <Ethernet card>

Select Specify IP address. Put in a private IP range address like: IP Address 192.168.1.1
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0

Click on the bindings tab and make sure
Client for Microsoft networks
File and Printer sharing for microsoft networks

are both checked.

Close all the windows with the ok or close buttons. Machine will reboot.

Repeate on second machine using IP address 1 digit off 192.168.1.2

Enjoy

SSR
 
Also make certain you log in at both computers, Win95 lets you skip that by hitting Escape. You must log in at both ends to have the network work.
 
Thanks for the help.

The main problem was that i was using the wrong driver
crowd: duh!

Having sorted that out, and spent another couple of hours wrestling with it, it works fine.

Not totally uninterested question:

Will i be able to use this network to play games, or do i have to have a hub for that?
 
As long as your game playing only requires the two computers to talk to each other, you can do absolutely everything you can do with a hub.

In fact, Windows has no idea whether you are using a hub or not. It only knows that it has an IP address, subnet mask and a route onto a network.
 
Technically, it's hard to find a hub anymore. Nearly all the 'hubs' are switches now. As a guideline, if you send a packet and lights for two ports flash, it's a switch. If you send a packet and lights for all ports flash, it's a hub. A hub blindly rebroadcasts every packet to every port. A switch is selective.

You'll need a switch/hub if you want to play with a third computer, or if you get a DSL/broadband/etc. network device that you want to have available to both computers, whichever is one on/off.

Keep in mind the crossover cable is 'special'. It should be a different color than your other cables, or otherwise marked. There's usually one extra plug-in point that shares a port on a switch/hub for plugging into another switch/hub, and you can plug the crossover cable from your computer into that, if you like. (Because this 'extra' port has the crossover wiring, that effectively makes a crossover cable into a 'normal' cable.) You can't plug another connection into the other half of that port. Well you can... but it won't work. The crossover cable will not work on any of the other hub/switch ports: just to save you discovering that for yourself.

The other nice benefit of switches (and external MODEMs): A little christmas tree light show!
 
And the nice thing about the 'Christmas Lights' is, you can SEE when the network is sending/receiving packets. If you're sitting there reading text from a web site that's "already loaded", or not even using the network, and you see the lights flashing anyway, you can reasonably suspect that something is going on that shouldn't be. You get instant visual feedback that your packet went out, or that packets are comming in (as opposed to a download being 'hung').

Similarly with the external MODEM, you can SEE when things are going out over the net: It blinks at you.
 
evildave said:
And the nice thing about the 'Christmas Lights' is, you can SEE when the network is sending/receiving packets. If you're sitting there reading text from a web site that's "already loaded", or not even using the network, and you see the lights flashing anyway, you can reasonably suspect that something is going on that shouldn't be.
Click to expand...

Be very careful about getting too paranoid about that sort of thing though. Most of the time it's either Windows sniffing around on the network, ARP, crapware like RealPlayer, etc. Software like ZoneAlarm tends to reinforce the "everything is a hacking attempt" line of thinking. Sillyness.
 
Yeah, it has to be tempered with experience for what's 'normal' in network activity. For me, that's basically nothing blinking. You can tell when it's Windows 'sniffing' because it's usually a broadcast packet, and all the activity lights blink briefly.

Contrast that with a LOT of flicker between your box and the DSL MODEM, like when a file download/upload is occurring.

I wouldn't normally expect a great-big upload to start up when I'm just sitting there reading an email. That's bound to pique my curiosity a bit.
 
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