Ok, let me throw this one at you.

Heres the situation.

2 computers, 1 internet connection.
1 comp: windows 98, to installed but not working PCI fast ethernet cards. One of which is built in, the other is a Mentor.
The other, XP home, and one working ethernet card (seemingly)
1 Mentor "4 port ADSL router"
Various cables. No website to look for help on.

The Goal: Both computers to be able to independantly connect to the internet, without one computer having to be on.

Firstly, i need to get a working driver for one of both of my apparent ethernet cards - the driver floppy that came with it wont work (maybe under windows98 anyway)
The readme file says that this is the driver name, and to specify a path to that location, but alas, i do so, and windows does not find the driver.

driver file: .\sisnic.sys
INF file: .\netoem.inf

Under the Device manager, the two ethernet cards have a yellow question mark. (p.s. - my MOBO is an ABIT NF7-M)

Now for the Router. We get all the lights to light up (Power, USB, 1x, ADSL)

And Pev's comp seemingly connects to a network at 10.0Mbs, however, we can not connect to the internet.

The instruction manual says to open explorer and type in "http://10.0.0.2" which should ping to the router, and open the setup section as a web page. this does not work.

The guy over the phone was no help at all. HELP!

Okay, Satis is the pimp-daddy of this subject, but i think ill have a go at it.

The 1st edition of Win98 is incompatibe with USB.

1st get all your devices working and for gods sake find a driver for you Card.

Then physically connect them with Cat5e crossover cable. 2 ends into the router one into each pc.

Then its a problem regarding software. You need to try and get into My Network Places and set up a Home or Small office Network.

That dont, there should be no reason why the router shouldnt swicth and share connection between the two.

Mole has win98 SE, i have xp home. Mole could probably connect if he could find a drive for his ethernet card. but i can't guarantee that. the router connects on my pc at 100Mbps but won't connect to the internet through the router. At the moment, if you look at my network connections, i have my speedtouch modem connected to ASDL at 2.2Mbps AND through a different port, connected to the LAN (ie the router) at 100Mbps. But if i swap the ADSL line from the modem so it goes into the router instead, my computer refuses to recognise any internet connection. The ADSL light on the router is permanently lit however.

We know there's a modem inside, we've been told this plus the router is specified as an ADSL router. The whole main problem with it is that we need to configure the router by going to 10.0.0.2 according to the manual, but without a net connection it won't let us. *just gonna try now i'm connected through a modem*

1. wtf is a mentor?

Anyway, this is the way it's SUPPOSED to work.


1st, unplug that stupid router for a bit. Unplug your DSL modem too. Leave them both unplugged for about 5-10 minutes (or longer, doesn't matter, just not less). Power down your pcs too, or unplug them from the cat5 cable.

Plug in your DSL modem. Wait until it syncs up and y ou get normal lights (depends on the modem, not sure what that would be for you).

Your router should have both LAN and WAN ports. Most likely just 1 WAN and several LAN. Be sure to plug the WAN port into the ADSL modem. After plugging it in, power up the router. Leave it alone until IT is done syncing up and being happy.

Next, power up your PC, or plug it in. Make sure the pc is set to dhcp.

*ASSUMING WE'RE USING THE XP BOX*

To check this in WinXP, if you have 'my network places' on the desktop, right-click it and hit properties. Find your nic that you want to use (just 1 on the xp box, right?) and right click on that, then properties.

Double-click on 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)' and just make sure everything in there is set to automatic. If yes, just cancel out of everything, close all windows, back to desktop. If not, change it and ok all the way back to the desktop.

Next, go to a dos window. You can do this by going to start | run and typing 'cmd'. Once at the dos prompt, type:

ipconfig /all

Look for an ip address. Look for a default gateway. Post those if you have one. If you don't, try rebooting your computer, going back to DOS and looking again.

Win98 is entirely different, so don't try using these instructions on the 98 box. In fact, before you do ANYTHING with the 98 box, you need to get at least one of those nics working. THAT is an entirely different issue. Right now I'm more interested in getting the router functional.

*phew*

ok cheers Satis. hope you'll b around a while lol. gonna try putting the modem in between the phone line and router, coz apparently this router has a modem in it but hey, whatever. trouble is i just found that one of my 2 LAN ports is still trying to connect to the uni network i was on last year. i'll let you know how it goes in a few mins hopefully.

I hear that netwo0rkink in Linux is much easier.

no, it's not. Linux networking is a massive pain in the ass. Unless it gets set up automatically when you do the installation, of course. Manually doing it after the fact is a pain the the ass (at least for me).

ok scratch that. just realised that (both modems being USB external ones) they only have one port on them to accept the ADSL line through. So i can either have comp - router - modem or comp - modem - phone but i can't have a line from the phone going into the modem and another coming out of it into the router. Damn. Mole's just trying to install a driver for his Ethernet card he found...

Your router only has a usb connection? WTF? That doesn't sound like much of a router to me.

no the modem. right, pay attention

Modem: has one port only. eg, ADSL in. It connects to your comp by a permanent (on the modem) USB cable. if that makes sense.

Router: has a Line (WAN) port, power socket, USB port (as in so it connects to your comp by USB, not so i can connect the modem to it type of thing) and 4 LAN ports.

oh and mentor is the make. apparently a stupid one.

so...basically, your LAN port on your DSL modem is only USB. No ethernet port at all? Well, that's downright retarded. In that case, you can't do what you're trying to. The only way to get both machines online is using internet connection sharing or something similar. *shiver* Any chance of getting a dsl modem with an actual ethernet jack on it?

eek no, we've spent more than we can afford anyway! but mole is now connecting via network straight to mine. That is if we can get his comp to appear on the network group. which we're about to try. so we shall see. *sigh*

besides, in theory the router is a modem with an ethernet jack. coz it has a built in one. that was mole's input. along with many 'bloody's. lol.

anyway right now my comp is on the internet, and mole has an ethernet cable attached from his network card to mine. if he unplugs his end, mine says a cable is unplugged. he's just using a network setup disk that XP made when i set up the network. hopefully his will now show on my comp and we can map drives etc.

make sure the workgroup name on both computer is the same.

make sure neither computer name is longer than 8 characters

make sure there is no description in either computer.

damn you. mine has a description! lol. well we're just running it now...steve is adding in his stuff...group names the same...

Even i managed to get that fixed once (only once, one other time i totally screwed things up and had to ask for help ) so it can't be that hard.

Just remember to breath in and breath out deeply to stay calm pevil.