Okay..> I have given myself a migraine. I have two computers with Windows XP Pro, one Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter(LNE100TX v4)installed on each computer, a cable internet connection, one Linksys EtherFast 10/100 5-Port Workgroup Switch connecting all three. My question is: How do I set up these two computers to share that one internet connection and communicate with each other. Can this be done with the hardware that I have or will I HAVE to get a router or more Ethernet cards? Can anyone help me? P.S. I have been able to get one or the other to connect to the internet (depending on wich one I boot-up first), but while I am connected to the Internet they will not communicate with each other...OR I can get them to communicate with each other, but not the Internet. Truely stumped <---- Joey What have I missed??

Hi, you want to get one more Ethernet NIC (network interface card) and plug it in one of your PC. Now you have one PC with two NICs and the other with one NIC. Connect the cable modem directly to one of the two NICs. Connect the other of the two NICs to the switch. Connect the other PC's only NIC to the switch too. Now you have something like this: /////////////////////////////////////////// //// +-----+ //// +----+ // +---+ // +----+ =====|modem|-----x|PC_A|y---|hub|---z|PC_B| //// +-----+ //// +----+ // +---+ // +----+ /////////////////////////////////////////// Configure the interface x as your ISP told you(IP address, Default Gateway, DNS etc). Configure the interface y as 192.168.0.1 and turn ICS(Internet Connection Sharing) on on the PC. Configure the interface z as 192.168.0.2 with both the Default gateway and the DNS Server set to 192.168.0.1.

I don't beleive you have to configure interface z for static ip, it should be set up using dhcp and the second nic on the "server" will assign a random address.

Hi, you're right. It's not necessary to assign a static IP address. But I think it's better in every aspects. I think you don't need DHCP in a small network. DHCP makes sense only in a big network where there are so many nodes connected that you have no idea of which IP addresses are being used and thus which IP addresses are available in the subnet mask range. With static IPs, you can take more control of the network. By the way, 192.168.0.2 is the IP address that DHCP server would assign in the above case. Why dynamically assign when you know exactly what will be assigned allways?

The access router would probably be the better route to go; allows each PC to access the cable independant of the others. Otherwise one PC has to be the host with two NIC's - one to cable the other to the LAN; and it has to be on/active for the other (client) PC's to access the cable...? An acces-router removes this limitation. Perhaps browse/checkout: http://www.dslreports.com - dsl obviously (but most applies equally to cable). http://www.practicallynetworked.com - sharing section (covers cable/dsl/dun) And search via google.com and/or dogpile for sharing cable modem will bring you many other useful sites all about it.