Does it make sense to network PCs that don't have a broadband connection?

Factual Questions
1

I recently purchased a Dell notebook and would like to network it to my Dell home desktop. A friend, who is somewhat of a computer expert, chuckled when I mentioned this and said, “It really doesn’t make much sense to network two computers that have dial-up access to the Internet.”

I’m no computer expert, but my hope is to streamline the downloading of anti-virus, firewall, Windows and other updates, as well as coordinate files. I cannot get broadband Internet where I live.

Is there any downside or limitations to networking two computers if all I have is pokey dialup Internet access?

2

You know, we had networks before the Internet existed, and we certainly had them before broadband was invented. There are more reasons to network your PC’s together than so that they can both get to the internet. File sharing, printer sharing, two-player games…

That said, if your primary purpose is to get both machines on the Internet, you might want to dumb down your browser so it doesn’t try to download every single graphical bell & whistle to come along. If they’re sharing a dialup connection (and you might want to check your contract to see if it’s even allowed), there’s a good chance you’re not going to be able to do much more than simple browsing & email. Any online games you’re managing to work through a dialup connection will probably see some slowdown on a shared line, but it’s not like you’re playing WOW or Halo Online through a dialup connection. Right?

3

Sure it makes sense, especially since you can get wireless routers super cheap. I did this for my parent’s house before they got high speed internet. Yes, sharing a dial up line sucked but it allowed wireless use of the laptop and printer/file sharing.

In this case the desktop machien was setup for internet connection sharing with the ethernet connection being the shared one. This was in turn connected to the WAN side of a wireless router. Mom could connect the desktop to the internet and work from her laptop anyhwere in the house. In fact after addign a high gain antenna I was able to easily work from another house on the property with both my work and personal laptops.

4

This would be an excellent use of your network. You can save time and bandwidth by downloading important files from the internet once and then simply sharing them across your network.

5

It depends what you want to do; I don’t have my desktop and laptop networked at home and it’s a pain in the ass - I might have been editing some video on the laptop during the day and I want to copy it to the desktop PC to render it or burn to DVD - I have to use a USB hard drive as a go-between - for several gigabytes of content, copying across a peer network would be a lot quicker and easier.
OK, I do have a broadband connection, but that’s irrelevant - LANs have many other important uses besides those which pertain to the internet.

6

The Plant Network uses dialup. We schedule anti virus and Windows updates for times when we aren’t browsing the web. Shooter games are slow, you’ll get creamed.

7

>>> After reading these posts, I now realize I want to network my two PCs, but do so wirelessly. Can this be done without broadband access?

My hope isn’t to connect two PCs to the Internet at the same time. What I really want to do is to keep my desktop in my basement office while using my laptop anywhere I want upstairs.

I want to be able to edit certain Word files on my laptop and then save the revisions to both laptop and desktop. (While I can do this with My Briefcase, I’m hoping to cut out the middleman.)

I also want to be able to access the Internet with my laptop, update the anti-virus or firewall and then send these updates to the other PC. I am not a gamer. This is strictly for business use.

Am I correct that I need a router and need to configure my PC/laptop to work on a network?

Many thanks.

8

Here’s how I did it, having an existing network switch:
You get a network hub or switch and connect (wire) the desktop to it. Connect a wireless accesspoint for the laptop to talk to.
Share the desktop internet connection and you are in business.

9

Just to elaborate a bit on carnivorousplant’s post… You can do this with a low-priced wireless broadband router, the kind intended to connect your wireless network to a cable modem or DSL. However, you set the wireless device to be a wireless access point only instead of being a router. Most of these devices include an internal hub, so you could set it up like this: take the network cable from your wired computer and connect it to the wireless router (one of the LAN ports, not the WAN port intended for connecting to the broadband connection). Use this wired connection to bring up the wireless router’s configuration screens (details depend on the flavor of router) and set the router to be a wireless access point. In general, this means turning off the DHCP in the wireless router and hard-coding a static IP address on your LAN’s subnet so it’s just another node on your network. Then your wireless computer can use that access point to connect to the wired machine. Turn on security like WPA to make sure you’re not sharing with everyone in range.

If you go out and try to buy a “wireless access point”, they can be very expensive. However, most of the inexpensive wireless broadband routers can be reconfigured as an access point very easily. There are lots of how-tos online, and if you provide a brand/model of a wireless router you have or want, we can provide pointers to more detailed configuration instructions.

Your friend’s comment that networking local machines doesn’t make much sense if you’re not sharing a broadband connection has been well refuted by other posters. I’d just add that you should be very careful about taking advice from this “expert” when he has demonstrated such a limited view of networking. It’s pretty clear that you’re more expert than he is because you’re finding a way to do what you want and he can’t even see the potential uses.

10

Hey, I bought two of them for $20.00 on Ebay.
And one of them worked!

:slight_smile:

11

Excellent. I just wanted to point it out because I’d noticed that the products from Netgear and Linksys seem to be very expensive if they’re labeled as “wireless access point”, but you can get the same functionality in their “broadband router” products and usually pay single-digit prices with rebates, etc.

12

Why don’t you just get an ethernet cable and transfer the files that way?

13

I want a wireless system that allows me to go from room to room in my house. One day, I might work in my dining room or sunroom. The next out on the patio.

Stupid question: What the devil is an ethernet cable? I take it, um, that it’s a cable used to transfer data, much like a USB cable that connects peripherals, yes?
I think I need to enroll in Networking 101. :smack:

14

An ethernet cable is the cable that connects devices to a network. It has eight conductors and tips that look like big telephone plugs.

15

Gotcha. Precisely what I want to avoid running throughout my house. I sounds fine for new construction, however.

BTW, a friend today offered me his “2.4 GHZ wireless broadband router.” Could I configure this for a dialup system–and later use it if and when the cable company gets out to my house?

16

Carnac you can certainly use that router but it’s the computer with the dial up connection that has to be configured. It actually acts as the router. You need to setup internet connetion for this to work. The daisy chain will look like this

Phone jack

RJ-11 (phone cord)

Modem jack on PC

PC actings as router

Ethernet connection on PC

RJ-45 cable (the 8 conductor “phone” cord, one of several types of ethernet)

WAN connection on wireless router

Wireless laptop

You will need a wired connection from desktop to router since the desktop machine provides the router with an IP address. The router in turn provides IP addresses to the laptop and other machine(s)

17

I had a setup kinda like this for a long time, only with a wired connection instead of wireless. Really, it’s not that much different though.

What you are going to end up with is two networks. The first network is your modem, which connects to the internet. The second network is going to be a local network which only exists inside your house.

The first network is already mostly set up, so not much to do here. What you are going to want to do is set up what is called internet connection sharing. If your operating system is windows ME, 2000, or XP, this is just a check box that you enable under the network properties for that link. You need to have your second network set up already before you do this.

Your second network (the local one inside your house) is going to be a bit harder to set up, but it’s still relatively easy. You need to add a network card to your desktop, if it doesn’t already have a network port on it. This is your network. You are the network administrator. Every machine on the network has to have a unique IP address. The important thing is that your desktop is going to be the “gateway” to the internet in your house. Once you’ve installed the network card, you’ll need to go under network properties. You can’t automatically obtain an IP address, since there’s no one to get an IP address from on your network, so you’ll have to set it yourself. You need to use the IP address 192.168.0.1 and a netmask of 255.255.255.0. If you manage to set this wrong, windows will change it for you when you click on the modem’s network and enable internet connection sharing.

Now you’ve got your desktop all set up. He has a connection to the internet, and he has a local network that can also access the internet. Now you need to set up your laptop.

In order to connect to your network, you need to connect your wireless router to your PC. Normally, there’s a switch or a hub that all the network things connect to, but since you’ve only got two things you can connect one directly to the other. This is also important: There are two types of ethernet cables, “straight through” and “crossover” cables. If you go to a hub or a switch, you need “straight through” cables. If you go directly from the router to the PC, you need a “crossover” cable. Then set up your router and the network card in your laptop according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

On your laptop, you can probably use DHCP to automatically obtain an IP address, but I personally always use a static address just to make things easier to manage. If you use a static IP address, it needs to have an IP address of 192.168.0.x where x is some number between 2 and 255. The net mask will be 255.255.255.0, and the gateway will be your desktop’s address on this network, which is 192.168.0.1. If you use DHCP it should automatically give you pretty much the same thing.

If you want to be able to share files from one computer to the other, you’ll need to enable microsoft file and print sharing. Make sure that both computers are configured to be in the same workgroup (in the same place as where you identify the computer’s name) and that they each have a unique name.

18

Carnac, feel free to contact me if you need help setting this up. steve@pimacountychoppers.com This is precisely how I setup my mom’s system and switching to high speed internet was a simple matter of reconfiguring the network connection on the PC and physically connecting the router to the cable modem.

19

Hmm… just had a thought (why does this always happen AFTER I hit reply)

Your wireless router might be a card that plugs in the computer. In that case you just configure it like a network connection. It’s going to need to have an IP address of 192.168.0.1 like I said before. The only difference is you won’t need wires to connect it to the computer since you’ll just be plugging it into the computer.

Also, if you later want to upgrade to cable or DSL, you have two choices. You can just replace the modem with a cable modem or DSL modem (make sure you enable internet connection sharing again when you set them up), or you can buy an external DSL or cable modem and a router (or a unit that has both the cable/dsl modem and the router all in one unit), and plug the wireless router and the desktop PC into it. The advantage of the latter is that you will be able to access the internet with your laptop without requiring the desktop to be on and connected to the internet.

20

Would the PC be a “server” in this example?