I give up.

[dod]

I have been trying to connect to computers at home. One has Epox built in LAN and the other has a PCI NIC card.

I went through the networking instructions on the MS site, Howstuffworks but still no joy. I have tried manually setting IP addresses and letting them be assigned automaticaly.

All I get is "Network cable unplugged".

What I have done is assumed that either the NIC card, the onboard on 8RDA or cable was faulty. Bought another cable (one is CAT5 and the other is CAT6) and a new Belkin NIC card. Have swapped cards into both machinesusing different PCI slots, swapped cables etc but still getting that message.

I know this is probably something I am missing but could someone please give me some pointers for what to do next.

[surlyjoe]

if your hooking 2 nics together directly, it will have to be a "crossover" cable, thats the green and orange pairs crossed

[Áedán]

As the good doctor says, start right at the basics!

Most network cards have a little light known as a "link" light. This tells you that the network card can see something at the other end of the cable. If there's no link light, then no amount of messing around on the PC is going to help in the slightest!

Once again, the doctor's prescription for a crossover cable, if you trying to connect two computers directly is exactly, well, what the doctor ordered.

The other alternative (and it's good if you're going to expand your network) is to purchase a small 10/100 switch. They can be found for less than £40, and offer a number of ports for connection other machines. Dabs have an 8 port 10/100 Desktop switch for £21.14 for example. I've never used it though. See 29V9WS

The switch will allow you to use ordinary network cables you can buy down PCworld (or where ever) to connect your PCs to the switch.

Áedán

[dod]

Thanks.
Okay, I did actually ask for a crossover cable, both times, but I'll try that again.
Have to admit that I didnt check for the light so I will do that tonight. I simply checked they were both showing correctly in Hardware manager.

[Con]

Yeah what Áedán said

It doesnt matter in XP/2k if the machines are configured for networking or not, if you get that network cable unplugged dialog it is hardware and not software...as well as the LINK led on the nic there is normally an ACT led as well which shows if packets are being sent and recieved

Con

[piccoLEW]

maybe if they havnt got any cross-over leads, as for a cross-over connector.. thats what i got at home .

i did start of with a cheap 10/100 hub, but i was only getting 10mbps, a real pain when it came to scanning the 98SE hard drive from the 2k machine.

[dod]

Well, a change of cable does the trick. My requests obviously werent clear enough.

Okay now I can ping both machines but still cant see files. I'll work through this yet.

[kat]

click my computer / click the appropriate drive/right click the folder you want to share / click sharing and security..and you will see a box  that says share this folder on the network, you need to do this on both pc unless you dont want the person using the other pc to see your stuff   or you can right click the drive to share the entire drive...which isnt a very good idea

[SteveI]

Ping is good... very good. Sounds like you have a working network. Now all you have to do is set the OS's to allow communications... file sharing, internet connection, printsharing are all os dependent. What os are you running?

[surlyjoe]

if these are 2k/xp machines, you will need to set up a user account for the other machune unles you are using a universal admin logon :-D

[dod]

Many thanks for all the help guys. Its running
I know its not much but its another first for me

[kat]

thats cool

my first network was with ME and dialup the guy at the computer store sold me a cable router said it would work the same way as a regular switch as you can imagine i was pulling my hair out for a couple of days

[piccoLEW]

well, i would always try and rely on someone you know has the knowledge and experience if something's going to work, i try not to rely on what the guy tells you at the shop. chances are the person selling is only there to sell, and not aomeone who's v. knowledgeable. Sometimes u might even get a computer genius sellin u stuff

[loop]

my first network was with a serial cable going in to com ports between 2 win98 machines. It was just enough for me and my bro to play Swat 3 together and its what got me hooked. Now a couple of years on I have 6 computers all networked up and sharing one cable modem. Its given me many many hours of fun.

[dod]

Originally posted by loop
.......just enough for me and my bro to play Swat 3 together and its what got me hooked.

About 8 months ago I had no interest in computers whatsoever, apart from hoping it would come on when I pushed the button. In fact my knowledge of computers was restricted to the basic stuff we did at school which involved a pile of cards with either punchouts or colour in sectors with a card reader thing. (Calculators were only just being introduced to schools and there was a huge debate over whether or not they should be allowed to be used) Thats about 25 years ago so maybe some of the older guys here will remember that.

Anyway somebody then gave me Fifa 2002 (soccer game). When it wouldnt run right on my original set up I went to a couple of forums to try to find out why. I eventually ended up here and that bloody game has cost me a small fortune during that time. New motherboards, Graphics, CPU's, cases, memory, the lot. I suppose you could now say I'm pretty well hooked

[piccoLEW]

addict this place is addictive! maybe its eeeevil :devil: