"Pierre said:
Hi-
Just bought a custom computer from ibuypower.com with an asus 64 compatable
motherboard with Dual LAN...and I was wondering how I can network two PCs
using this feature, if one PC does not have an ethernet card. Can I merely
run an ethernet wire from the new PC to the old PC and attach some sort of
ethernet to usb converter on it, to hook up to my old computers USB 1.1
ports? Or perhaps a printer or montior port? Or something else perhaps?
There are several products at the bottom of this page that will
convert from Ethernet to USB (1.1 or 2.0). The price is kinda high
compared to plugging a cheap Ethernet card into your old PC. I
could understand if your old PC is out of PCI slots, but otherwise
a cheap Ethernet card should not be any trouble to get working.
The bargain bin at your computer store will have Realtek 8139
based PCI Ethernet cards available for $10 to $15 bucks.
http://www.linksys.com/products/group.asp?grid=34&scid=30
The only thing you'll have to remember to check, is whether
a crossover, or a straight_thru Ethernet cable is required.
When connecting two ordinary 10/100BT Ethernet interfaces,
the TX on one machine must be connected to the RX on the
other machine, and vice versa. This requires a crossover cable.
(I keep one of those cables in my parts bin for emergencies,
and one end of the cable has a red connector, while the other
has a blue connector. The fact the colors don't match is a
clever way for the cable manufactuter to tell me that the
cable is a crossover type.)
If one of the computers has a 10/100/1000 (i.e. Gigabit Ethernet
chip), some of those have MDI/MDIX (whatever that is), and the
chip can automatically figure out the wiring, so a straight_thru
cable is all that is needed.
The two links at the top of this page show the two types of
cable, with the non-crossover cable not having a distinguishing
name, while the crossover one does:
http://www.startech.com/ststore/catlist.cfm?category=c70&topbar=topbarc.htm
So, no matter what Ethernet solution you come up with, if the
LEDs don't light up when the computers are connected, it could
mean you need to pick up one of the "other" kind of patch cables.
In a way, this is very similar to computers and modems, where you
needed a "null-modem" cable to connect the serial ports of two
computers together (i.e. for Laplink file transfer). An "ordinary"
cable would be used to connect computer to modem. At least
in that case, the devices had names like "DCE" and "DTE", so you
could tell whether the two things you wanted to connect were the
same type or not. Ethernet devices are a bit more devious.
As for the wisdom of serially connected computers, if the computer
with the two ethernet interfaces is put to sleep, or is turned off,
the second computer loses its internet connection. If the second
computer is just a server for the first computer, this isn't
important. It is only when a human sits in front of the second
machine, or the second machine is going to be a FTP or web server,
that you might consider a router box as a way to distribute
Ethernet service to all the computers. I have a DSL modem connected
to a Linksys four port router, and then the computers plug into
the Linksys. While this is more expensive than your plan, I can turn
off any computer without worrying about the effect it has on the
others.
HTH,
Paul
