I have a friend who has a cable modem which uses a 3com cable modem device to access the Internet. It works fine and is hooked up to one computer through a NIC. He bought a Linksys dsl/cable modem router that you can plug 4 computer directly into and that's supposed to make sharing the internet connection possible. Well, it's not working. Now I'm pretty certain the cable modem provider is giving him a dynamic IP address because when I wiped it out, put a static IP address in, rebooted, then took away the static IP address and told it to get one from a DHCP server it did, and it was in the same range as the original address (did that make sense?). Anyway, that's why I believe he's assigned an IP address and does not have a static IP address. What would be the best way to share the internet connection? He doesn't want to have to purchase anything else and I don't blame him. He said that it was working at one time where both PC's were sharing the Internet connection, but when he had to wipe one of them (the 2nd PC) and reinstall everything it stopped working. Although troubleshooting info would be helpful, I'd really like to know the best way to set this up from scratch. For instance, if you don't have a static IP address from your ISP can you still use Win98SE Internet Connection Sharing? Knowing what you now know what would recommend is the best way to set this up? Any help would be great.

I have the same Linksys 4port router. It supports DHCP on the WAN side. I have @Home cable, don't know what your friend has. In some cases, you have to specify a MAC address, or let the cable Co. know about the MAC of the router. Linksys has newer firmware that you can download. Do that now to avoid the hassle later. Even iwth DHCP, I had to specify the DNS IP addresses, and the host name "xx00000-a" that @Home uses. It works great! It's a shame you're not having a easier time with it, but I love it, we have 5 PC's hooked up. Email me if you want, it's just a config problem. Ryan

Well if it worked once it probably is a configuration problem Go to Control Panel/Network select TCP/IP ->yournetworkcard and click properties. 1. Set both NICS to Static IP's Your Linksys router has the address 192.168.1.1 so set the clients to192.168.1.2 the next to 3 etc. Subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 in the IP Address tab Control Panel/Network/Properties 2. Make sure yiu have a TCP/IP stack in your network settings/specify an IP in the above range. 3 Default gateway is 192.168.1.1 (the router) Host is "computer name" isp.domain" such as mypc gte.net 4. point your browser to the lynksys 192.168.1.1 make sure the radio button is set to obtain an IP address Automatically" click the "Status" tab and look at the DNS entries at the bottom and write them down. 5. Go to the setup page and enter these 2 IP's in the DNS section on the setup page of the router. Disable the DHCP server option. You may have to go to networksolutions.com and do a whois lookup for the ISP domain to get these nameserver IP's. Click ControlPanel/Network and enter these IP's under the DNS tab in DNS Search order. 6. Do not upgrade to the new Linksys firmware unless your router is not working. 7. Shut down the PC (let it restar to get the NIC settings Then shut down again. Then the Router Then the cable/dsl 8. Start the modem/router/PC in that order. That should do it. You should be able to ping the other machine now since you basically have a Class C network with the private address range 192.168.1.2-99 At the dos prompt "ping 192.168.1.3"