I have two computers (laptop and a desktop) and I have a LAN that I connect to for the internet at my house. I just bought a new network card for my computer. I installed it and then I made a crossover cable to connect it to the laptop. The crossover cable is fine because it works when i plug it into the original network card, but the second card doesn’t do anything. It is detected properly, and says it is properly installed, but it doesn’t seem to work no matter what I plug into it.
Anyone have any idea why? The software that came with it is old, and only documents installation for windows 2000 drivers. I figure its a generic NIC, it can’t be that incompatible. Maybe I have some settings wrong? I was running PearPC so I had to creat a Virtual Open VPN adapter, so maybe that has something to do with it?
I’m just trying to understand the topography here. You say you have a LAN, so I assume that means you have an ethernet network using a switch or hub, right? Now you want to add a laptop to the mix, so the first question is why not simply make it a node on the existing network?
It sounds like you’re trying to make this desktop be part of two different networks, one network being the existing LAN and the other network being the connection with the laptop. If that is the case, the two networks need to be different workgroups and you should probably assign static network IP addresses to that connection on the desktop and the laptop to further help distinguish the two networks. I have a similar setup (I think) at my work where I have two separate networks running on the same machines. One network connects PCs running terminal emulation software to a Unix based server and the other network runs our Internet access though a router to a DSL connection. The two networks exist independantly and the only problem I have is sometimes if a computer has a NIC that is built in to the motherboard, it is often the case that Windows will only allow Internet access on that connection.
Yeah that’s what I was trying to do. It was weird, but I managed to get it working. I changed out the second Network Card into another slot, and it seemed to work. I don’t know why…But thanks for the help anyway. Yeah, the LAN that I’m on isn’t mine, its from my apartment complex, and they have some kind of MAC address thingie that prevented me from connecting my laptop. But the weird thing was that my laptop was working earlier, but then suddently it didn’t want to let me use it. I don’t know, I wanted to have the two connected anyway.