How should I set up my home network?

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You could, but it'll be MUCH easier in the long run if you just get a wireless network card for your desktop and connect using only it. They're pretty inexpensive these days, and then you wouldn't have to have your laptop on in order to connect.

If you insist on doing it with the laptop, you'll need to turn on internet connection sharing on it, and then connect with a "reversing" ethernet cable to the desktop. Some internet applications may not work because you'll be going through two layers of what's called address translation - the router and your laptop.

Hi Leo,

For some unexplained reason, my XP Pro machine is experiencing difficulty reconnecting to my home LAN at boot up. I have my cable modem and Linksys cable router attached to my Windows 98 machine which acts as the host. Sometimes, when I fire up the XP machine the LAN connection is not present in the Network Neighborhood window. Ocassionaly, a re-boot will fix it but more often than not, I will get a message that a network cable is unplugged or something like that. The mapped drives to my host machine never connect without forcing a search for the mapped drive. This has worked flawlessly for over a year. Any ideas what might be going on?

Network Neighborhood does indicate two 1394 connections which I believe are my external firewire hard drives, but I am not sure.

Thanks,

Chris

"Cable Unplugged" is Windows telling what it thinks is happening at the hardware level. I would check, perhaps even replace, the cable you are using. Perhaps plug the cable into a different port on the router, and lastly, perhaps even try replacing the network card on the machine.

I'm trying to set up a network at home between two computers. Both have LAN cards and have a cable between them. However I can not get either computer to recognise one another and constantly get a message saying "A network cable is unplugged" What am I doing wrong? How can I rectify this problem?

You either need to use a router (or perhaps a hub) as outlined in this article, OR you need a cross-over cable, as outlined in this article: http://ask-leo.com/can_i_network_two_computers_with_just_a_cable.html - note that either approach may require you to install additional networking protocols. Check that last article for that.

Hi, I am currently trying to expand my wireless network, I have a 3Com Wireless 11g Cable/DSL router, and I have just purchased an Access Point of the same brand. My problem is that I can connect to the access point (it's in the same room as the router at the moment) while I have an ethernet cable into it from the router, once I unplug it, and I cannot get internet access on it via wireless. It has a static ip address, and the gateway is the router, the router is the dhcp server. It seems that the access point won't communicate via wireless to the router, is this normal? I thought access points could sit up high and boost your signal or create seperate Lan's while all being connected via wireless to the router for DHCP purposes. It's driving me mad and 3Com are impossible to get answers from, any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Monica.

What you're seeing is expected. An access point is expected to be connected to a wired network. It in a sense "gets" the network from the cable, and makes it available wirelessly. It does not communicate wirelessly to the router.

Hi Leo,
I've read your instructions here and I have my router connected properly I believe. Just like in the diagram. But for some reason the Internet will still not work on either computer. Right now there is the wire running from the modem to the router and two wires running out of the router to each computer. But still nothing. Now there are two other connections, one for a printer and another for 'com' which i assume is computer? Does something need to be connected to that running to the base computer? Or would this be an ISP issue? Cheers!! Bryan

What model of router?

Hi Leo!

I have two notebook Compal model CL51 & model CL51A. After flashing BIOS, the screen is nothing but power led is blink. I think my BIOS is error.
Please, help me!

Thank you!

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