Hi, please excuse the stupid name. I've been using a USB LinQ Network cable for a couple of months now. I bought it because it was much cheaper and easier than buying a normal network system, since the cable was all I needed - I didn't need to install LAN cards or anything. Anyway, I've noticed all along that it's been quite slow. I realise that that is because I went for the cheap option, and because both of my computers are almost antique (350 Mhz & 180 Mhz) :) But what I was wondering was would it increase the transfer rate if I were to add another USB LinQ Network cable? Thanks Matt

Buy a home networking startup kit or else get 2 cheap NICs. A 10Mbps NIC will cost less than US$10 [you'll need 2 of them] and also buy an ethernet crossover cable of the appropriate length. You get all the speed you want and at a not too expensive outlay.

I have never worked with these but according to the web the xfer rate is only 5mb so you would be doubling or quaduple your thruput with 10mb cards. I have never seen USB listed in network cards. How do you bind a protocol to it? I don't thing two routes between the workstations would work. No routing taking place or adapter teaming. I would think the boxes would just become confused.

Ok, thanks. I probably will buy a proper network kit sometime. But, do you suggest I get rid of the USB cable (i.e. send it back and get a refund, sell it, or just keep it for future use - probably the last one), or will it be worth trying both the USB cable and NICs at the same time? By the way, the reason I asked if having two cables would double the speed was because I heard that you could get a dual-cable internet connection, which is two cable internet connections which makes a double-speed connection. I also know about ISDN2e (I think that's what it's called), where you either use the 2 ISDN cables in different computers, or connect them both to the same one to double the speed, and I know of the existence of "the poor man's ISDN" (two modems and two phone lines), and I just wondered if double-networking would work in the same way as these things.

wanderer: yeah, the point is that you don't need to open up the computer and install any cards. The problem for me isn't opening up the computer - it's just that I don't have any PCI slots left. But the USB cable just plugs straight into a normal USB socket on each end, and there's a little box in the middle of the cable, which acts as a kind of external LAN card (but obviously not actually a card) with built in cables.