Hi all,
Ok My question, in detail, is this I have an ethernet card I got when I signed up with High Speed Internet (sympatico), and now switched to the cable internet access (much faster by far). All that Sympatico wanted back was the 1 meg modem and the power adapter. This now leaves me with a bunch of connector pieces and some phone line filters and this ethernet card. So if any of you straight dopers out there can give me some advice as to what I can do with this stuff it would be greatly appreciated.
…is exactly what you can do with one ethernet card. To be any good you need two ethernet cards and two computers (at a minimum) in which case you can hook the two PC’s together via the ethernet cards and share data.
Still, I’d hang on to the card. You never know when it might come in handy and while they’re not hugely expensive they’re not free either so what the heck.
How does your cable modem attach to your computer?
Like Manny implied, cable modems typically use an ethernet card to talk to the computer. In fact, I’ve never seen one that worked in any other way.
My parents Cable modem is USB.
USB has started showing up as a networking solution lately believe it or not.
One Ethernet card, a crossover cable, and another Machine with an ethernet card and you have a peer to peer network 
Sorry I usually am on this forum at work so that is why the late reply…My cable does have a ethernet card and that was supplied to me when i signed up…so in other words i now have two ethernet cards…awwwwwwwwww
May I ask a question? I thought you had to have a hub in dealing with ethernet cards. Is a crossover cable a way of working around it? Also, where can I get one?
I ask because I may be getting a new computer soon, and I would like to transfer things from my old one with a minimal amount of tinkering. The old one already has an ethernet card.
yes, a crossover cable will take the place of a hub between two computers. It’s just an ethernet cable with two of the wires switched places on one side, to line up transmit with receive and vice versa.
Another non-hub way to have two computers talk to each other is a “null-modem” cable. It’s basically a parallel port cable with some wires crossed internally. Windows supports this method, though I’ve never used it myself.
If you have two ethernet cards in two computers, a crossover cable is the easiest way to do it. You can find one in any small computer shop, and possibly anywhere that sells normal ethernet cable.
Thanks
The easiest way to get one, if you’re at all able to work with wires, is to make one. Start with a normal ethernet cable. wires #4&5 and #7&8 are unused so ignore them. You now have 2 pairs of wires in use: #1 & #2, and #3 & #6. Switch 1 & 3, Switch 2 & 6.
1---------\ /--------->
2------\---X-- /----->
3-------\-/ \--/------>
4 unused \ /
5 unused \--/-\
6-----------/ \----->
7 unused
8 unused