Networking Question?

I have networked 2 PC's using 2 networking cards cards linked by one single
cable, now the guy has said that he wants me to add another PC to this
network?

What would be the best, easiest and cheapest solution please

TIA

Vietnam Sam

"The Vietnam War draft was white people sending black people to fight yellow
people to protect the country they stole from the red people."

[ Bin the Napalm to reply ]

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 01:16:08 -0000, "[ Vietnam Sam ]"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I have networked 2 PC's using 2 networking cards cards linked by one single
>cable, now the guy has said that he wants me to add another PC to this
>network?
>
>What would be the best, easiest and cheapest solution please

Buy a 5-port switch and connect each machine to the switch.

jay

Jay wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 01:16:08 -0000, "[ Vietnam Sam ]"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>>I have networked 2 PC's using 2 networking cards cards linked by one single
>>cable, now the guy has said that he wants me to add another PC to this
>>network?
>>
>>What would be the best, easiest and cheapest solution please
>
>
> Buy a 5-port switch and connect each machine to the switch.
>
> jay

A switch will cost £40 or more.
A hub will cost £12 or more

Switches are 100Mb/s
Hubs are 10Mb/s

100Mb/s is never 10 times as fast as 10Mb/s due to other limitations.
For interactive gaming it seems about 5x
For internet access there is no difference at all because "broadband" is
only 0.5Mb/s and that's the bottleneck. Even the improved 100Mb/s access
to a local cache is not discernible.
However, if you want to play network-games or might later want a fast
server on a scanner/printer, buy a switch.

The cable you have is wired "crossover" and you need "normal" ones to
connect to a hub or switch. However, hubs and switches have a
"down-link" port (meant for cascading from another hub) and you can put
the crossover cable in there, so you only need two new cables.

--
Have fun,
Mike
--
http://fonehelp.co.uk - PC support, no fix, no fee!

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, Mike Yates
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Jay wrote:
>> On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 01:16:08 -0000, "[ Vietnam Sam ]"
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>>I have networked 2 PC's using 2 networking cards cards linked by one
>>>single
>>>cable, now the guy has said that he wants me to add another PC to this
>>>network?
>>>
>>>What would be the best, easiest and cheapest solution please
>> Buy a 5-port switch and connect each machine to the switch.
>> jay
>
>A switch will cost £40 or more.
>A hub will cost £12 or more

For a 3 machine network a switch isn't going to be any faster than a
hub.

>
>Switches are 100Mb/s
>Hubs are 10Mb/s

There are a lot of 100Mb hubs around. It's definitely worth using 100Mb
hardware.




--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, "Mike Yates"
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Jay wrote:
> > On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 01:16:08 -0000, "[ Vietnam Sam ]"
> > <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I have networked 2 PC's using 2 networking cards cards linked by one single
> >>cable, now the guy has said that he wants me to add another PC to this
> >>network?
> >>
> >>What would be the best, easiest and cheapest solution please
> >
> >
> > Buy a 5-port switch and connect each machine to the switch.
> >
> > jay
>
> A switch will cost £40 or more.
> A hub will cost £12 or more

You can get switches from around £20.
>
> Switches are 100Mb/s
> Hubs are 10Mb/s

What gave you that idea? Both switches and hubs can be 10 or 100 Mb/s.
>
> 100Mb/s is never 10 times as fast as 10Mb/s due to other limitations.

A nominal 10Mb/s network won't deliver 10Mb/s either.

<snip>
>
> The cable you have is wired "crossover" and you need "normal" ones to
> connect to a hub or switch. However, hubs and switches have a
> "down-link" port (meant for cascading from another hub) and you can put
> the crossover cable in there, so you only need two new cables.
>
Some devices are auto-sensing - they don't mind if you use straight-
through or crossover cables.

Thanks for all your replies guys, What I have at the moment is 2 PC's simply
linked together with a Belking Home Network Kit, in other words 2 network
cards linked by cable which is hidden by trunking.

Do I simply plug the 1st PC into the Switch, get cable for the 2nd PC and
plug that in also, then simple insert a network card into the 3rd PC and
cable it to the Switch .. voila? .. no problem if that is the case?

How tricky is it to get them talking to each other as I think they may want
to share Broadband in the very near future? [just needing a rough guide
please]

TIA

Vietnam Sam

"The Vietnam War draft was white people sending black people to fight yellow
people to protect the country they stole from the red people."

[ Bin the Napalm to reply ]

[ Vietnam Sam ] said this...

> How tricky is it to get them talking to each other as I think they may
> want to share Broadband in the very near future? [just needing a rough
> guide please]

If you are adding broadband sharing into the equation it may be worth
forgetting about hub/switch and checking out a router.
I use a Linksys BEFSR41 to network my 3 boxes together and share my cable
broadband. Something like this is easy to set up and adds an extra layer of
firewall security as a bonus.

--
º~ dªv¡d ~º

In message <40028f61$0$49435$(E-Mail Removed)>, "[ Vietnam Sam
]" <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Thanks for all your replies guys, What I have at the moment is 2 PC's simply
>linked together with a Belking Home Network Kit, in other words 2 network
>cards linked by cable which is hidden by trunking.

Networking kits usually use a cross-over cable to connect the two cards.
You may not want to replace that cable if it is buried in trunking. You
have three choices to re-use a crossover cable.

1) Use a hub/switch which automatically sense crossover cables.

2) Use the uplink port on the hub/router.

3) Buy a crossover adapter from somewhere like Maplins and use that to
cross the connections back again.

>
>Do I simply plug the 1st PC into the Switch, get cable for the 2nd PC and
>plug that in also, then simple insert a network card into the 3rd PC and
>cable it to the Switch .. voila? .. no problem if that is the case?

Yes.

>
>How tricky is it to get them talking to each other as I think they may want
>to share Broadband in the very near future? [just needing a rough guide
>please]

No problem. In fact if they buy a combined ADSL modem/router/switch they
can just plug the three PCs into it. Most of those devices have four or
five ports. That's definitely the best way of sharing an ADSL
connection. If they are definitely going to be switching to ADSL then to
simplify things they could buy the router now. It saves having to buy
two pieces of hardware.

If not then buy a hub or a switch now then when they get ADSL they need
to buy a router with an Ethernet interface. This will just plug into the
same hub/switch.



--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.

Rob Morley wrote:

>>Switches are 100Mb/s
>>Hubs are 10Mb/s
>
> What gave you that idea? Both switches and hubs can be 10 or 100 Mb/s.
>
Well, you might remember that when switches were made at 10Mb/s in the
olden days, they cost well over £1000.
Is anyone bothering to make hubs with 100Mb/s ports, now that switches
are almost as cheap?
I'm just talking about the bottom end of the market, where most of us
find ourselves ;-)

In any case, as Groove has answered, routers nowadays have four switched
100Mb/s ports on the back, almost "thrown in for free".

--
Have fun,
Mike
--
http://fonehelp.co.uk - PC support, no fix, no fee!

In message <(E-Mail Removed) >, Rob
Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, "Mike Yates"
>(E-Mail Removed) says...
>> Jay wrote:
>> > On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 01:16:08 -0000, "[ Vietnam Sam ]"
>> > <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >>I have networked 2 PC's using 2 networking cards cards linked by one single
>> >>cable, now the guy has said that he wants me to add another PC to this
>> >>network?
>> >>
>> >>What would be the best, easiest and cheapest solution please
>> >
>> >
>> > Buy a 5-port switch and connect each machine to the switch.
>> >
>> > jay
>>
>> A switch will cost £40 or more.
>> A hub will cost £12 or more
>
>You can get switches from around £20.

And ADSL router/switches for less than £50. Mine cost me about £100 six
months ago.



--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.