Network sharing

[Anpippin]

Hey I just moved my desktop computer to another roo and I don't think it has a wireless card, but I was wondering how can I connect my laptop to my desktop computer to get internet connection? My laptop has Windows XP on it and my desktop has Windows 7 on it. I don't wanna have to buy anything to do this, I just want to be able to connect my laptop to my desktop via an ethernet cable, just a regular ethernet cable. How would I do this?

[Dukane]

Without buying anything? That's not possible. Unless you cut up your existing Ethernet cable and re-wired it into a crossover cable.

[stvrich]

... HOW can you connect them, unless you HAVE a network card? ... check/verify your desktops configuration. make sure whether or not you do ... or do NOT... have a wireless card. Because you say "I don't THINK it has a wireless card..." go, make certain... Other than that... are you saying you DO (definitely) have a "regular" "old fashioned" NIC (network interface card) with an rj45 connection? (because you have not confirmed THAT.. either) IF so, then ... YES... the (possibly) cheapest way for you to connect them is with a (probably LONG) crossover cable. meaning, there IS a configuration of RJ45 connectors that will allow you to directly wire two computer networking cards together. ---without using a hub or network switch. That, will be your "cheapest" solution. But... if you are stucking buying 40 or 60 feet of ethernet cable... ---you may as well go buy a decent (or even a CHEAP) wireless network card for 30 or 40 dollars and be done with it. but... you need the network cards to get this done in any decent way whatsoever.

[stvrich]

dukane's right. You can chop up regular ethernet cables and rewire them into a cross over cable. just check/be sure of your wiring. You can probably find decent wiring guides for "crossover cables" on the internet.

[mjdodd]

agree with all the above and even suggest if the distance is too long for one cable buy (yes you will have toà) a router and just extend again. Wirelss is ok but not through stone walls metal or in the voicinity of high electrical fields like micro waves.
M

[stvrich]

check things out and let us know what you decide to do (or NOT do).

I'm predicting you'll find the only satisfying solution (unfortunately spending some money) will be to get network cards (wireless?) since that'd probably be the "EASIEST" way to do it other than with ethernet cable. But THAT also implies a wireless router. (more money) ... unless you have friends or family with an old wireless router they'll just give you. Doesn't hurt to ask. maybe get an old ethernet hub 10mbs (older hubs and switches) is fast enough for most purposes anyway.

[Dukane]

A wireless router shouldn't be necessary. He could set up an ad-hoc network and go computer-to-computer. But that would defeat his original goal:

I don't wanna have to buy anything to do this, I just want to be able to connect my laptop to my desktop via an ethernet cable, just a regular ethernet cable. How would I do this?

[Anpippin]

I was wondering, I have a 2WIRE router already, would I have to buy a 2WIRE wireless card for that? Or can I just buy any wireless card like a Netgear or Linksys wireless card?

[hughv]

Any modern card should do.

[stvrich]

Try something and let us know how it goes... Or does NOT go...

good luck

;->

[Anpippin]

Try something and let us know how it goes... Or does NOT go...

good luck

;->

Ok I went to RadioShack today but they did not have any internal wireless card, so I ended up getting a Netgear Wireless-G USB 2.0 Adapter. It is 54 Mbps, 2.4 GHz, and 802.11g. But it seems kind of slow and it shows my network signal strength as 90%. When I am downloading games on Steam they only download at 30-60 KB/S, and on my laptop they will download at 100-1000 KB/s. Is that because my network has WEP? I am using a 2WIRE router, is there any way I can boost my signal or make it faster?

[stvrich]

People often report that using WEP does slow the connection.

So, maybe if you disable the wep during a large download, (or any major file transfer) it'll improve things. (that DOES defeat the purpose of having security tho') ---On boosting signal. Yes, I have seen where on many wireless routers you CAN boost the signal. But, if it is reporting a signal strength of 90 percent ( with a POTENTIAL 54MBPs) you're doing well already with signal. (I've had super fast-downloads with extremely low signal strengths) More power does NOT equate to faster download. More power is related to CLEAN signal reception. Your bandwidth is still your bandwidth (and THAT is where your "speed" is) no matter what the signal strength is. IF there is a lot of electromagnetic interference in your house, yes, signal strength WILL come into play, b/c many of your data packets may be "dirty" and need to be resent, THROUGH electromagnetic garbage...) ... so, I wouldn't change power settings if that is an option your router offers, the less you push the components the less they heat up and last longer. WEP may be creating a 'bottle neck' of sorts by forcing everything to be encrypted/decrypted. (takes logic cycles to do that, therefore time/ and computational bandwidth etc). On our local wireless, we have ZERO security installed. Makes things run faster , but also, ANYbody can hook into it. None of us are too terribly concerned about that, in OUR case, we accept the risk involved and just run software on our PC's for protection. Firewalls, monitoring software etc. In my own case, I'm not really worried about it much.

I get TWO numbers in my connection without WEP. USUALLY it operates right at 54MBPs, and good/excellent signal strength (when I'm using a good wireless card, You'll see in one of my own posts I was having trouble with a wireless card recently, turned out to be the antenna) the other number I get all the time is 36MBPs at good/excellent signal strength. Without WEP. Try yours with and without WEP and see what numbers the system reports. Also, try transferring a huge file... like a large cd image or something to load the system and see what it does under real load. You'll want to know what the REAL difference is with/without WEP. It may REPORT 54 mbps but with wep may take 2 or 3 hours to transfer a 4 gig image. without wep, might take 22min... you just have to test and see how it goes in Your case. Then decide where your priorities are regarding security vs speed.

If you leave security DISABLED on the router, you might actually want to DECREASE the signal strength so people two houses over can't hook into it. Or so wardrivers (people who LOOK for open networks by driving around neighborhoods with laptops) can't find it. That is ONE way of reducing with the security risk while speeding up your network. You actually CAN operate quickly (a High MegaBytes per second) with low signal strength.

[stvrich]

also, do not forget. ... this is really important too...

You could try everything under the SUN to speed up your own connection. But--- if the site you are downloading from is slow/overloaded and busy. it will NEVER be fast.

I've been using one network card (with a bad antenna) and certain sites are just painfully slow.

But--- with that SAME bad network card I recently downloaded a HUGE demo video (from Blizzards movies for their new game coming out) I was utterly UTTERLY shocked at how FAST I got hundreds of megabytes of movies....

I mean, I downloaded like a whole GIG of demo-movies for their new game. In mere minutes. like 300mb in 4 min... WITH A BAD NETWORK CARD! with a "weak" signal.

I was truly shocked at how fast. BUT...
it was b/c the site I connected to was willing and ABLE to pump out the data --that fast--

your network could be totally MAXED for speed.
and the site you connected to could be a dog.

[stvrich]

I also use DownLoad Accelerator software to help speed up software downloads. What it is--- is a multithreaded manager with "resume" capabilities (IF your download gets interrupted you don't have to re-start from the beginning if the site supports "resume"). It really DOES help speed up downloads, even in some cases where the site is slow, b/c if you can open 3 threads (that are slow) the site might be throttleing the downloads to share out what bandwidth they DO have... if you can get 3 , 4 , or 5 "slow" threads open and downloading... you've just trippled or quadrupled your download rate. (in some cases)

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Download_Accelerator_Manager_Free_Edition/damfree.html

for all versions of windows...

[Anpippin]

Which is better infrastructure or Ad-hoc?

[stvrich]

"better" is very relative. Depends on what you mean by "better"

depends on what you have to work with also.

"Ad hoc" is usually better for homes and small office.
on a cost vs performance basis.
by definition, "ad hoc" means you use what you have ON HAND...
for whatever the purpose.

I worked for a "solution provider" once who'd sell a 15,000 or 25,000 dollar "solution" to a small office that needed one (or two?) servers and maybe 3 or 5 workstations.... with year long maintenance contract.
In that case, the owner of the business could be CONVINCED to spend the money on infrastructure. A couple of medium sized Dell servers , new workstations... etc.

That's called making a SALE...
when that same office COULD have been served just as well---
or perhaps even BETTER by an ad hoc, that was setup well, to do essentially the same purpose. MAYBE with the one addition of ONE new machine to act as a server/central data storage point or backup workstation etc. ...for far less cost.

better at WHAT? security? data duplication and storage?
infrastructure can be (DESIGNED to be) more secure. Infrastructure tends to be SLOWER when it comes to communications between peers on the network tho'.
Again, depends on how it's designed.
"secure" might also mean, "backups" having info or entire drives imaged etc... and stored/saved automatically and securely elsewhere on the network.

can you BUILD similar functions INTO an ad hoc?
sure.
Ad Hoc's beauty is that it is often inexpensive. Windows comes with a lot of basic functionality built into it for instance.
Not that you'd save a huge oracle database with it... necessarily.
but in a doctors office, An office that used a proprietary application for CRM, and data organization. 3 workstations might save information redundantatly across all 3 workstations... in case ONE of them fails.
I am referring to typical office documentation... Not terrabyte sized databases.

will it be as good/efficient as on an infrastructure?
again, what --IS-- "good"?

saving money for a small network? then go ad-hoc.

In Symbol Technologies, they had huge oracle databases running on an HP-UX (unix) dedicated infrastructure.
they had tri-monthly disaster recovery drills.
why?
b/c they had to practice restoring a massive data base loss for a global scope network and their data warehouse.

in THAT case. "better" meant a heavy-duty dedicated infrastructure.
you betchya.

for the doctors office down the street. that has 3 old windows 95 workstations...
maybe not so heavy duty... right?
for all I know they'd be happy still running windows 95 and office 97
and the doctor in charge will pay me to just network the 3 machines for him... ad hoc.
done. cheap. maybe buy him a hub.
MAYBE share out an internet connection. maybe install a tape backup.

ad hoc.

In most (home network/small network) cases, adHoc is fine or "better"... Cheaper, easier to setup, ...quicker... in many respects.
Ad hoc CAN be faster (as far as data is concerned) b/c the peers talk to each other directly. again, depends on the applications, and what they are doing.

But by implication, the QUALITY of communications might be "better" on a strong infrastructure. Not necessarily FASTER (megabytes per seconds wize). (depends on what you mean by "better") Everything ON the network has to attach / authenticate. If authentication is part of it's security structure. And infrastructure is often designed to BE "managed". of course it is possible that there is little or NO security OR management enforced on an infrastructure. The key word in this case is --designed-- .

Ad hoc by definition... you use what you've got, and MAKE it work to the best of your ability, budget, time, ...or Luck. Usually the word is applied to "smaller" networks.

That does not mean that an ad-hoc network is necessarily cheap. or bad. they can be quite good, functional and secure.

depends on how you operate them, and what you install IN the network.