# Wireless LAN help - How to enable 'net sharing - 2 PCs and 1 Router ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 18, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803 "2003-12-18T18:04:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/1 "2003-12-18T18:04:44Z")
**What I have:** 1 PC (WinXP Pro, PIII 733, 256MB, 2 NICs, No Wireless, 1 External IP Address) 1 Laptop (Wireless 802.11b inbuilt, WinXP Pro, PIV 1.2GHz, 256MB) 1 Netgear Wireless Router (802.11b, 1 WAN Port, 4 LAN ports) **What I want:** The Laptop to connect wirelessly to the Internet. **Constraints:** The broadband Internet connection coming in to my home **has** to be connected to the PC. My ISP uses a client to authenticate my connection. This software also checks the config of all NICs attached to my PC. It authenticates the Internet connection only if all MAC addresses on my PC have been registered with the ISP. **Current Config:** 1. Internet connection coming in to the PC on NIC#1. This has an external IP address of the form 202.xxx.xxx.xx, Subnet 255.255.255.0 2. NIC#2 is connected to my Wireless Router on LAN Port 1 of the Router using regular CAT5 cable. My router has autosensing, so it knows if I’m using a straight-through or a cross-over cable. NIC#2 has IP address 192.168.0.1, Subnet 255.255.255.0 3. The Netgear wireless router is configured to offer wireless access to my laptop. WEP, etc. is disabled. My laptop finds the router and can connect to my PC through the router. Filesharing is working both ways. Router has internal IP address 192.168.0.3 The WAN port of the router is not connected to anything, since the Internet connection is going to the PC not to the Router. I have, previously, successfully used the Router for wireless Internet connectivity when the WAN port was connected directly to an Internet connection. 4. My laptop is configured to connect wirelessly to the router. Laptop wireless IP is 192.168.0.4, Subnet 255.255.255.0 Laptop finds the PC, but cannot connect to the Internet. 5. Internet Connection Sharing is enabled on NIC#1 of PC. However, my laptop doesn’t seem to connect through to the Internet using this configuration. I’ve run the Home Networking Wizard on both the PC and Laptop. Summary: PC NIC#1: IP: 202.xxx.xxx.xx Connected directly to the Internet Internet Sharing Enabled PC NIC#2: IP: 192.168.0.1 Connected to LAN Port 1 of Router Router: Internal IP: 192.168.0.3 WAN port not connected. LAN Port 1 connected to PC Wireless activated for Laptop Laptop: IP: 192.168.0.4 Wireless link established successfully Internet Sharing not working. What am I doing incorrectly ? Thanks for your inputs. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Gui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@El\_Gui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Gui)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/2 "2003-12-18T19:25:47Z")
(I’m a little wary that my answers in GQ may not rise to the level of a **factual** answer, and since you _are_ a moderator, my knees are practically buckling here, but . . . .) 😉 I have a setup using Linksys Router and a Wireless USB network adapter on my second PC. PC1 is running Win XP and PC2 is Win98SE. However, I’m able to use the more common setup where the router is between PC1 and the cable/DSL modem. The difference I noticed is that in my setup, PC1 with WinXP has its “Internet Connection Sharing” option _disabled_ (or rather, the box to enable is not checked). I looked in the manual but this isn’t mentioned, so I forgot where exactly I was told to do it this way. I can access the internet from both computers normally with no problem (other than a few problems w/ port-forwarding for running a P2P program on PC2) Could this be the problem with your setup? One other thing that popped up while previewing: Are your MAC addresses correctly set-up? The web-utility for Linksys has a MAC cloning option available for broadband setups that require this. Mine did not, so I’m very unfamiliar with the MAC thingy . . . Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/3 "2003-12-18T20:04:01Z")
Like **El Gui** said, most routers have a “MAC Cloning” or similar option, so that you can connect the router to your broadband modem, and the ISP will think it is connected to the NIC on your PC instead of the router. Then you should be able to run both your computers off of the router. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/4 "2003-12-18T20:25:00Z")
Unfortunately, I can’t use the MAC cloning feature of my router because my ISP’s authentication client looks for the MAC addresses of both NIC#1 **and** NIC#2, along with password authentication, before allowing me access to the 'net. With my previous ISP I had no such problems. My config then had the router connected to the Internet, and multiple PCs (including wireless) connected to the router. I had used port forwarding etc. to get my peer-to-peer games, Internet telephony apps., etc. working fine. It’s just that I can’t seem to figure out the problem with my current setup. Any additional info would be appreciated. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/5 "2003-12-18T22:44:32Z")
IIRC, “Internet Sharing” turns XP into a DHCP server + gateway. Since your laptop has already requested an IP and the router gave it one, it’s not gonna find the one PC #1 wants to give it. Are you sure the Internet Connection Sharing is bound to NIC2 and not NIC1? (Probably is, but you might wanna check anyhow) What’re the gateway settings on the laptop? If it’s 192.168.0.3, that’s a problem. You might have to manually set it to be 192.168.0.1. You _could_ always hook the router’s WAN link up to NIC2, and then declare the laptop to be in the DMZ… but that seems a bit sloppy when you’re just trying to use the router as a switch. ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/6 "2003-12-18T23:38:41Z")
I’ve always found it’s best to let the dedicated hardware be the DHCP. I set the router to point to the PC as gateway/DNS with DHCP turned on in the router. I don’t remember what I did with ICS (this is a friend’s house), but it all works great. What is the model # of the router? I’ve never used netgear products, but I’d be willing to download the manual an check it out. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/7 "2003-12-19T09:12:48Z")
Oh. You might also be able to turn off DHCP on the router, leaving PC1 to provide DHCP support, which would also fix the problem I described in my 3rd paragraph. (This would turn the router into a switch, what you’re trying to do in the first place). ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/8 "2003-12-19T14:18:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nanoda \* > **IIRC, “Internet Sharing” turns XP into a DHCP server + gateway. Since your laptop has already requested an IP and the router gave it one, it’s not gonna find the one PC #1 wants to give it.** Interesting. That’s an angle I didn’t consider. **Are you sure the Internet Connection Sharing is bound to NIC2 and not NIC1? (Probably is, but you might wanna check anyhow)** NIC #1 has Internet sharing enabled. 'Coz if I make NIC#2 the ICS NIC, then it assigns an IP of 192.168.0.2 to NIC#1 and my Internet connection stops working. **What’re the gateway settings on the laptop? If it’s 192.168.0.3, that’s a problem. You might have to manually set it to be 192.168.0.1.** I figured that might be part of the problem. I had initially set it to 192.168.0.3 so that it establishes the wireless link. But I tried setting the gateway on the laptop to 192.168.0.2 and even to NIC#1’s IP. In both cases, the wireless connection was established correctly and file sharing was possible both ways. Just no Internet Sharing on the laptop. Interestingly, when I set the laptop’s gateway to NIC#1’s IP, I could ping - from the laptop - NIC#1’s gateway. So it _was_ seeing things outside of my LAN. \*\*You _could_ always hook the router’s WAN link up to NIC2, and then declare the laptop to be in the DMZ… but that seems a bit sloppy when you’re just trying to use the router as a switch. \*\* I’m not sure how this works, or whether it does. But when I initially tried connecting NIC#2 to the router’s WAN port, the WAN port did not detect a valid connection. Maybe a cross-over cable is required in this case. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/9 "2003-12-19T14:29:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by emarkp \* > \*\*I’ve always found it’s best to let the dedicated hardware be the DHCP. I set the router to point to the PC as gateway/DNS with DHCP turned on in the router. I don’t remember what I did with ICS (this is a friend’s house), but it all works great. \*\*I’ve set DHCP on in the router, and it starts assigning from IP 192.168.0.4 (which it has assigned to the laptop). The DNS addresses in the router are 0.0.0.0 for primary and secondary. Are you saying that if I set the primary DNS in the router to 202.xxx.xxx.xx it will work the way I intend it to ? \*\*What is the model # of the router? I’ve never used netgear products, but I’d be willing to download the manual an check it out. \*\* [Netgear MR314 Wireless Router](http://www.netgear.com/products/details/MR314.asp?view=) It’s served me well, and was a breeze to setup. Excellent admin options, very configurable. Although the range is very limiting. It also has a 5 year warranty. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/10 "2003-12-19T14:40:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nanoda \* > \*\*Oh. You might also be able to turn off DHCP on the router, leaving PC1 to provide DHCP support, which would also fix the problem I described in my 3rd paragraph. (This would turn the router into a switch, what you’re trying to do in the first place). \*\* Something I didn’t think of. The router working as a _wireless_ switch is precisely what I want. Thing is, I’ve returned the laptop this morning, so I won’t be able to test out these configurations until the next time that I get the laptop. Which would be in a few weeks or so. So I won’t really be able to update you further, but it looks like it should work if I try out the configs you have offered in this thread. You guys are great. Thanks again for all your help. Appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-lan-help-how-to-enable-net-sharing-2-pcs-and-1-router/219803/11 "2003-12-25T11:59:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nanoda \* > \*\*Oh. You might also be able to turn off DHCP on the router, leaving PC1 to provide DHCP support, which would also fix the problem I described in my 3rd paragraph. (This would turn the router into a switch, what you’re trying to do in the first place). \*\* **Nanoda** , that was spot on. Thanks a ton. I turned off the router’s DHCP server, and now the laptop is surfing perfectly. Thanks for explaining the logic as well, I didn’t know ICS turned XP into a DHCP server, and wouldn’t have figured that the router’s DHCP server was conflicting with that. My router is working as a [wireless] switch now, just what I wanted.