Let me make this easy and short: I have a relative who has two computers (both win xp home 32bit) and a sb5100 modem. So we have connected the modem to a netgear fs105 switch, with the modem connect to the WAN, and the two computers connected via cat5. Thats the setup, here's the catch; both computers cannot be online at the same time. Only one computer will be assigned an ip address at a time. The modem will give one computer an ip address (Seems to be random), but never both at the same time. We switched out the netgear switch with a Linksys switch, but to no avail. Refer to these two posts, which have a similar if not exact problem (neither of them really seemed to have an answer): http://www.computing.net/answers/ne... http://www.computing.net/answers/ne... Both computers are set to obtain DNS and IP info automatically. Thanks in advance!

the RAM, think I can explain why and what you need to do, but sadly, I don't know how. Strikes me you need to have both hooked to a router. Routers can connect to the internet and separate the signals. Your unique number is assigned by the router. That way the ISP number is for the router, not the computer. Seems I recall that you can set up an XP computer to act as a router? Dunno how though. Maybe this'll put you on the right track? HTH. Ed in Texas.

Oh I can do that, thanks for the tip. I just recently had to set up a laptop in our home to provide the other computers in the house with internet, its called ad-hoc mode. I will try the setup with a router.

You definitely need a router. With just a modem and switch both computers are trying to use the same IP address which is not possible. A router will assign a private IP address to each computer and redirect the public IP address as appropriate via Network Address Translation. You can set up one computer to act as a router via Internet Connection Sharing. This is a software solution, whereas the router is a hardware solution. I would go for the router as it is a lot easier and more reliable. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310563 Ad-hoc modes relates to setting up a wireless network without the use of of a Wireless Access Point. it is the wireless equivalent of connecting two computers together via a cross-over cable. Stuart