Sharing Broadband connection ...

I have two computers in my home in the UK - both fairly old (500 celerons) and both running on Windows ME. I also have a 1MB broadband connection socket (currently plugged into one of them)


(1) I could network them I suppose. What is the CHEAPEST way of doing this? The main aim is that I just want them both to be able to share my 1MB broadband connection adn be online at the same time. I am looking for a cheap and cheerful no frills option to do this.

Is it as simple as just purchasing 2 network cards and the required cable>?

(2) Or can I just plug somehow each computer *directly* into the broadband connection so that they can surf the net at the same time even though they are not connected together? if so, in laymans terms what generally would i require (along with approx cheapest cost)


Any advice much appreciated! Thank you

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Well there are a few possibilities here.

If you are supplied 2 IP addresses by your ISP then you can use a hub ($40-100). You would hook up your modem to the uplink of the hub and hook both computers up to the hub.

If you only have 1 IP supplied by your ISP you have two options. You could get a "router switch" ($70-150) which is setup the same way as a hub, except you only need 1 IP (but they are considerably more expensive than hubs and require a little more time to setup the software). The second way is to put two NICS into one of your PCs and use that PC as a makeshirt router ($30-100). Although I have never seen this it supposedly is easy to setup. The problem with this last way is that it puts more load onto your "router system" than is needed.

About a week back I had the exact same plan as you, but I talked to my networking teacher and explained that a router switch is a better sollution, and so far the thing is working perfectly. I got me a Network Everywhere/Linsys 4 port router (NR041). It's wonderful!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

the absolute cheapest way to do this:

if the pcs are already networked for pur[poses of playing games, install Microsoft ICS. cost: $0

if the pcs are not networked, install an extra ethernet card in both, run a crossover cable between them. then follow the above cost: about $20

if ou dont want to have both computers on to access the net from the second one, you will need a router. now both computers can access the net independently. cost: $40+

-
ignore that previous comment about loading up the machine. performing NAT on max 1 megabits worth of info wouldnt make an appreciable difference to a 486, let alone a 500 celery

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Wait! You're telling him to ignore my comment and you also tell him to use ICS? ICS IS very cheap but as soon as you try it out you can tell. The first time I tried out ICS it rendered one of my PCs useless because all the information was going through it, then to the other computers. As if Win ME didn't hog enough resources already...you want to put more load on a machine then is needed?

I liked the router solution much more because you don't have to worry about that extra information going from one NIC, through the processor, then back to the NIC. It gives you a firewall to restrict access to your computer from attackers as well allows for easy expansion. For the long run the $20 wasn't a big deal for me.

 

heh, so what do you actually think a router is, just out of curiousity. home net connection routers arent actually real routers.. theyre just an nat device with a built in dhcp server.. somewhat apart from a high end cisco or 3com bit of kit. but aside from that..

yea, i recommend ics as it is cheap, and i really think there was a problem wiht your system causing it to run like it was treacle powered, unrlated to ics. there isnt much overhead in the process you describe.. perhaps you didnt realise that moving a mouse generates millions of requests for cpu attention too.. the network is far less demanding than you think.

as an additional example, i have a pII 233 (downclocked from 350) with 64megs of ram under the stairs. it functions as a router for the house, it runs ICS on windows 2000 advanced server, and routes up to 5 PCs. it also hosts services for the rest of the house, a web server, file server, dhcp and remote viewing server. bundled with the nat software is a dns server that uses the system HOSTS file for lookups before querying my isp. the hosts file is over a 1.5 megs long and contains in excess of fifty thousand hosts - such a hosts file alone is enough to cripple a windows 2000 system. however, the box has been up for nearly 2 months solid now, at an average cpu usage of 2% - its a junker (check the spec) yet you could hardly assert that it is underperforming.

in fact.. the nat engine, winroute pro (an ICS equivalent) has occupied just 7 hours of cpu time over the last 2 months. trust me, you wont even notice ICS

 

They are "router switches". And yes, I can tell the difference between a programmable router such as the ones cisco makes and the home brand ones like the ones linksys makes. Basically you're right, they are NAT hardware that has a bunch of added (and handy) features, one of which is the DHCP server.

Wait a sec now. Didn't you say you used ICS? Are you using ICS AND Winroute Pro? I can't really tell you how decent Winroute is because I've never needed to try it. I know how bad ICS is. Hell, I didn't even know they put it on Win2k or WinXP because it almost looks as though microsoft is too embarassed to put it in the start menu.

Even so, I commend you on your ability to build a stable computer. cjard you're using Windows 2000 Adv. Server right? Now if I'm not mistaken that is not even close to the lack of stability that WinME has. I bet you Dystran wouldn't get an uptime over 4 days on a router system that runs on WinME.

But maybe I'm wrong and you know it all....

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

ics / winroute pro.. not exactly apples and oranges is it. the only reason i have winroute is for the dhcp server and dns server that reads the hosts file.. which are likel to cause a bigger performance hit than just plain up ics, because the dhcp server built into win2k couldnt handle the scopes i wanted to create. i was surpirsed that the fairly retarded dhcp server on WR worked as well as it does. ms dns was too hard to set up effectively for the limited job i wanted it to perform. neither of these apply to the original posters case, however.

microsoft do indeed put ics on the start menu. it's called Routing and Remote Access (and also DHCP). you see, ics is a wizard, nothing else, that sets up a dhcp scope of 192.168.0.x and enables routing and rem,ote access on all relevant network interfaces so that the network onnection ends up shared. ics itself is nothing more than a ez-configurator for these rather heavyweight networking components.

a further point that ics doesnt appear on the start menu; it is not logical for it to go there. it is placed in the properties pages for each connection because it is related to networking, and specifically it changes its behaviour according to which interface it is enabled on. one start menu icon would have to ask an extra question. it may be sensible for ms to do this, as a lot of people misunderstand ics. the question should be "select the network adapter that is connected to the internet"

that is the only q it should need to ask.. as many people get it wrong by enablin ics on the connection to the lan

-

your final paragraph, i appear to have strayed you from the original comment; yes i can build a reliable and stable computer and configure the software to work fairly well, but your application that the original poster wants to turn one of his computers into a dedicated router as per my setup, is incorrect. if you see the post, he jsut wants net on both pcs, with my assuming that both pcs would be used as per their normal existing use: it would not make sense to turn one pc into a deciated router, as it only routes one other pc. both pcs are to be used as home office/games machine, and the solution i provided does adequately, with winME continuing to fulfil all its existing obligations and new ones with minimal disruption to the guy's wallet

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

cjard, I wasn't thinking that he wanted to turn his computer into a dedicated router. In fact I assumed that he would still be using the routing machine for something else if he wanted to go that direction. I think my arguments are falsely based. I am one that notices a big change in speed of my computer when I run one extra program. I am incorrectly assuming that Dystran is the same way. Basically what I was saying is that the extra $20 for a router instead of another NIC isn't a big price to pay.

 

aside from living in a country where the price differential between a router and a nic isnt a mere 20 dollars, i think we boil tdown to a sheer nerd culture point here..

there are people in the world that agonise over tech specs, performance profiles and benchmarks.. and theres others that just dont care, and wang the throttle open a bit more if they wanna ride faster.. same for computers. i have a hard time "buying" that you would even notice WinRoute running on your system, cos like i mentioned, its eats about 2% cpu. maybe turning down your hypersensitivity to what you think, and really assessing what you feel, may lead to a surprising result. do you defrag regularly? i cant remember the last time i did mine..
do you have a home cinema setup with a top of the range cd player, pumping digital out, down a 50 dollar gold plated cable, to a 24bit 96khz DAC, because it sounds better?

i jsut wonder, cos from time to time i meet someone that will insist on something that is visible on paper, but has no real-world difference at all.. in the home cinema example, i told the guy that the signal from the cd player to the dac was digital.. he could have used bell wire and got enough of a waveform through to reconstruct the original signal perfectly. further, his DAC was nigh on useless, as CDs are a 16 bit storage medium only, so having a 24 bit DAC would employ interpolation.. i.e. making something out of nothing; noise shaping at the end of the day, and ultimately, pure bollocks. he wouldnt have it tho, that a 16 bit DAC and a 24bit DAC of equal quality would sound absolutely identical..

not meaning to offend you or anything, but i think you fret too much. most users dont give a monkeys ass abput performance of their system. if they did, they sure as heck wouldnt run windows on an intel architecture; its sucks through and through.

 

You and I both said that the difference was $20 (or more).

My argument is as good as yours in my opinion. While purchasing a router can allow for further expansion in the case that another computer needs to be added to the network simply buying another $20 NIC would do the exact same thing in your situation.

Basically what you're trying to say is that buying the router would be totally pointless because there is a cheeper solution. Price was the original factor in this thread but I was simply trying to point out that price shouldn't be the only thing looked at. Expandability, speed, firewall capabilities, and the fact that you aren't using that 2% of the systems resources are all in favor of getting the router.

I am not one to go through tech specs and find out which product I want to buy from that. Hell, I am one cheap bastard. I am also a person who can identify when I will need something in the future (such as more ports on a router to expand my network).

So instead they would run linux on an AMD proc? That's the cheapest possible solution you could possibly find! As I said above, don't always focus on the price of the products or else you might end up costing yourself more in the longrun.

 

Personally I would have just got a Hub to link the machines together, (RJ45 and Ethernet Cards) then use a USB Broadband modem through one of the machines, and use that machine as a firewall for the other. (Where ever your gateway is to your LAN your going to need to firewall it)

But the other ideas are just as good. (Although through a machine might cater for IP changes due to any dynamic allocation)

 

I find that being contextual when answering bb posts makes me job a lot easier through limtied scope

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

youre right, of course, outside of context of the orig Q

true, something i am slowly learning in other areas of life. i spend 4 hours of my time welding up my bike exhaust to avoid paying 120 quid for a new one. 30 pounds an hour labour charge, plus materials puts paid to doing it cheaper..

but at the ,oment i can afford the time, and not the money.. i built a router, cos i ahd the time.. if id had the money, it would have been bought

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

but

1) a router = a broadband modem + nat hardware + hub

so duplicating hrdware there

2) faitrly sure your setup costs more than either of what i and testify debate over

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Yeah that's basically what cjard was saying, except he wanted to use a crossover cable instead of a hub.

 

Actually I don't really concern about the cost, as I have a system setup for a LAN and did the exact thing I mentioned.

Broadband in the UK means having a modem which is usually USB and there is no way around that (other than wiring an Office LAN package).

As for the LAN itself, a couple of Ethernet cards from a Bargain bin (about $5 or £4) and a LAN hub ($30 or £20) plus some RJ45 ($8.50 or £6) but that was 3 x 15 foot lengths.

total: $43.50 or £30

Now thats cheap.

 

its almost not worth posting this, but i do wish that newcomers to any discussion, who are ansering the original question, would actually do so... not the question that has evolved from posting-drift as a result of a debate by 2 previous parties..

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!