Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games
 |
 |
 |
HI everyone! i just buit another computer so now we have 3 computers running XP (and 1 laptop which may or may not be hooked up to the network) I already ran cat 5 through the house and we currently have a cheap 2 port router connecting me and my brothers computer together. My question now is should i buy a hub or another router to use my moms computer for internet sharing. with a linksys router (one i'm thinking about) can you do file sharing and printer sharing? can a hub do that. if i got a hub and used it for our network would the internet be on all the time the way our router works or would one of us have to connect? thank you in advance
If your using all the computers to surf the web, I would go with a router. Most routers these days have a built in firewall for xtra protection. You can do the same things with a router as you can with a hub, so file sharing and print sharing are available in your network. If you have DSL or 2 way cable, and your modem is on, your hot all the time. There is no internet connection though until you boot up the computer you want to use. Good Luck.
When all is said and done
More is said than done..
0 
As you only have a two port router and need to connect three, possibly four, computers to the Internet you will also need a hub.
Better still, get switch. The price differential these days is negligible and a switch will give you more facilities. A hub normally only runs at 10 Mbs while a switch will run at 100 Mbs.
Connect one of the router ports to the up-link port on the hub/switch and plug your computers into the hub/switch.
Stuart
0
I got a D-Link router with a 4 port switch from Best Buy for $20 after rebate. It don't get much cheaper than that. Then you will only have the router and the modem. If you get a switch you will have that and a router and a modem.
0
i don't really care about that 2 port router. I'd really like to replace it. I did see that $20 router in the Best buy paper and i'm thinking about it. Can someone tell me what a switch is? i've heard of it before but have no idea of what its function is and how it works do i hook my DSL modem to that?
0
I was searching for switches, I don't want to pay to much what do you think of this switch?
http://3btech.net/ph5po10mbfae.html
will that do everything i want? can i share printer access file sharing and plug my modem into that so the internet is on always. my internet is PPPOE so can i configure the modem so it connects the same way our router does?
0
If you buy a 4 port router you have a built in switch. That is where the 4 ports come in. You can buy seperate switches but why would you when routers/switches are so cheap.
Go the router/switch route and stay away from hubs.
0
Pretty much if you get a router with a 4 port switch, most of them anymore are plug and play, meaning you plug them in and they work. You can share your printer or files or whatever you want. They work with pppoe or most any type of broadband connection. The difference between a hub and a switch(someone correct me if I'm wrong)is when your machine which has for example an address on your network of 192.168.0.1 and you have 3 other computers which all have different addresses, you want to get a file off of a computer with the address of 192.168.0.2. A switch has the ability to know to which computer to send the request to. With a hub, it sends the request to all the machines and lets them figure out if that request is for them or whether the request should be dropped. As you could probably tell that would make for a less efficient network because there is alot more traffic.
0  |
 Screen problem.
|
SendTo as Move to instead...
|
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
| Ads by Google |
