I have 4 pcs in my house, and i am going to buy a 10/100 ethernet hub so that i can network them all together. They all have 10baseT nics in them which i plan on upgrading to 10/100 and my main computer is running win2k pro and it has a cable modem attached to it. i would like all computers to have access to the modem through the hub. how would i go about hooking everything up?? I am a little confused by this. i know that i plug all the computers in the hub from their nics, but the cable modem goes to the nic on my computer. will i have to buy a 2nd nic for the main computer for the modem? and then will it be able to share the internet through the 2nd nic that goes to the hub? Also i only have 3 pci slots on my mobo(gigabyte 7zm) so if i were to buy one of the usb/ethernet converters, and use that from my cable modem, would it slow down my internet speed any? Thanks, Bill

http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/netdun.htm#Sharing one modem from Helmig's SoHo LAN site: http://www.wown.com aka http://www.helmig.com Worth browsing through Helmigs excelent site; covers all flavours of Networking and sharing modems etc... (Fundamentals/basics upwards...) http://www.practicallynetworked.com (Tim Higgin's site) covers some/many aspects of ICS (Internet Connection Sharing). http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article.asp?aid=17150 covers many aspects of cable/DSL... and: http://www.dslreports - is a comprehensive DSL (and maybe cable) site; covers networking and the rest... There are many other simiilar sites; I find the above to be some of the best around.

I think you'd be happier with a second 10/100 NIC in the box with the cable modem. I don't recall the specifics, but it seems that the USB to ethernet may not approach the 100 mbps speed that the true NIC will.

I have the same setup at home. You will need a second NIC, Im not sure how well the USB adapter would work but I dont think it will be as fast. With Win 2000 it is very easy to setup this system. Lookup "Internet Connection Sharing" in the Help menu.

I would recommend buying a Linksys 4 port router Model # befsr41 instead of a hub. You connect all pcs to this router and then connect the cable modem to this router. It will give you a full network and share the Internet modem. I've done this many times and it works GREAT. It will cost you less then $200.00 and it gives you a full firewall network protection. Directions with the router are great.

how can configure a single cable modem to more than five pc in windows & linux system through single static ip or through DHCP ?

Depending on the level of security you want, you can also plug the cable modem into the "Uplink" port of the hub, then all computers can share it without any one of them being on all the time, which one would have to be if it had 2 NICs.