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Unfortunately, your description lacks some very important details--ones
that might give us the information we'd need to help you do what you want.
My first question is about how you have your machines hooked up. If I read
your message correctly, you used to have the two PCs directly linked, but
now have them both hooked to a Netgear hub. Each PC has a modem, but you
only use the one in PC #2, as it is a faster one, and nowadays you (at
least want to) rely on a cable modem instead of either of the POTS dial-up
modems. Is all that correct?
Where does the cable modem hook into your setup? It appears that your
Netgear box is only a switch (not a hub), and thus can merely allow the
sharing of Ethernet packets among different machines. Normally you'd attach
a cable modem either to a PC that would serve as a gateway (and perhaps a
firewall), and then share that connection with the other PC(s) on your LAN
through a separate network interface card (NIC) than the one connected to
the cable modem. Alternatively, you can get an "Internet appliance" that
takes the place of the gateway PC. In that scheme you hook the cable modem
to the Internet appliance, and then hook that appliance to your switch (or
hub) and hook each of your PCs also to that hub.
What you have to do at each PC to set up the proper networking among them
is quite different in the two scenarios I have described. And complex
enough that I don't want to attempt to describe them both at this time.
You also didn't tell us what operating system you are running on each PC.
Nor how you had managed to share the phone line connection (other than to
refer to some unspecified software provided by Netgear). Those details
matter, and without them good advice is hard to give.
If you hook the cable modem directly to one of your PCs, then it is vital
that you run some very good firewall software. And if you also share your
files and printers via a Windows network, you may find out that you have,
in effect, invited all your neighbors--and perhaps everyone in the
world--to come browse around your PCs and do whatever they like with all of
your files.
Once you get your Internet connection back up and running, I strongly urge
you to go to www.grc.com and check out the ShieldsUp! service offered
there. If it tells you that you are safe, then at least the worst of the
possible problems I referred to in my previous paragraph won't come to
pass--but otherwise...!
Good luck. And if you give us more details, perhaps I or some other list
member here can provide you with more explicit directions to accomplish
your goals.
John
At 07:19 PM 5/15/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi chaps,
>I recently installed a Netgear FS105 hub to network my two PCs and
>subsequently added a cable modem.
>
>PC 1 is a Pentium 1 120 MHz running windows 95 and PC 2 is a Pentium 3 450
>Mhz running windows 98. Each PC is fitted with a Netgear FA311 NI card.
>
>Initially PC 2 was acting as a dial-up gateway as it had a 56K modem (PC 1
>has a 28.8K modem), both PCs able to access the internet simultaneously
>over the single telephone line, and each PC was able to share all the
>files of the other. This was achieved using the Netgear software which
>came with the FS105 hub.
>
>Prior to the installation of the cable modem PC 2 suffered a fatal crash
>and subsequently failed to act as a dial-up gateway. I am currently unable
>to access the internet from PC 1 as I believe it requires PC 2 to act as a
>gateway for the cable modem as well as the dial-up modem. I have spent
>many hours re-installing dial-up and network adapters and attempting to
>set-up internet sharing but to no avail. The Netgear software also fails.
>I am certain that the problem lies with the adapters and the protocols and
>I really am not sure what is the correct combination.
>
>I have been able to set up networking and file sharing between the PCs but
>currently have removed the facility as it appears to cause PC 2 to lock up
>when accessing the internet.
>
>Can anybody please point me in the right direction? According to the
>information I have, I should only need to set up TCP/IP protocols for the
>adapters but there appears to be a distinct lack of communication despite
>the synchronised flashing of 100M LEDs at the hub!
>
>Brian
>
=======
John M. Goodman, Ph.D., author of "Peter Norton's Inside the PC," Seventh
Edition (Sams 1997, ISBN 0-672-31041-4), and Eighth Edition (Sams 1999,
ISBN 0-672-31532-7).
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