HELP

[AMP762]

Help from the brain trust.I know I am a computer dummy so be gentle please. I have two puters in home,one is windows98 the other is 2000 Proff. is there a CHEAP and easy way to connect these? I have dial up out here in the woods so I don't need to know about broadband I have found sevsral sites on that.

Thanks
Paul

 

[Jagmandave]

Why do you want to connect them? In other words, what is it that you ultimately want to do? File share, printer share? Each solution has a different answer. The first and easiest is to upgrade the Win 98 to XP, then hook 'em together with a good Cat 5 wire (assume both have an ethenet card) and follow the wizards to do whichever tasks you need. Other than that, we need more info!
Broadband has nothing to do with it, unless you want one to act as the online portal for the other. If you have them both hooked up to the internet thru their own respective phone lines, that would not need to change.
Tell us what you have in mind for this hookup and we'll have some better ideas..........

 

[Moon]

I toss out a couple of ideas. Depends on the reason for connecting them.

If you want to transfer data from one to another, a one time deal you could look for a product called 'LapLink'. It connects via the serial port on each computer. You need the computers sitting pretty much side by side for this to work.

If you want to network the two computers to share data all the time, you need to get a small hub. 4 port is the smallest I"ve seen. Newegg.com or buy.com have hoards of them. You'll also need a network card (aka 3comm card) in each computer (unless they have network cards built into the mother board - ie if you have a plug in for a lan cable, you have lan built in). Then you would need the lan cable to connect from each computer to the hub. You might be able to do without the hub, but with a hub you could add a third computer at any time. Without one you are limited to the two connected to each other (i think).

Is this close to what you are aflter?

Moon of Ohio

 

[Freds]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The first and easiest is to upgrade the Win 98 to XP... )</font>

I'm no computer whiz, so I have to ask, why? My home pc is running Me (I know, I know /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif) and my work pc is running 2000 pro. They are networked without any problems.

The reason I ask is because I will probably be upgrading my home pc shortly and I was going to get XP pro, unless there is a reason that they should both be running the same OS, but there doesn't appear to be.
/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[thcri]

The 98 machine and the windows 2000 will communicate together as they are. You don't need to update either one of them. In fact you can have a crosslinked cable made and you can hook them toghether without a hub. You just need network cards in each of the machines. With this you can now share printers and files. As far as hooking the machines to the internet I would not try and share the same modem. Let each computer dial up on it's own and do your browsing at the same machine. If you share modems you will take an already slower than molasses device and make it slower.


murph

 

[Moon]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Let each computer dial up on it's own and do your browsing at the same machine. If you share modems you will take an already slower than molasses device and make it slower.
)</font>

I have to agree with thcri, but with one caveat. You can connect both to the internet if both users are just reading forums or something similar. If one was downloading music the other would be heavily impacted (slow to a crawl) ...but otherwise to save costs or for a temporary setup there is nothing wrong with this. Just be aware of the gotcha's.

Moon of Ohio

 

[slapshot]

There are also broadband modems that you can connect a regular dial-up modem to, such as the SMC SMC7004ABR . This would allow for shareing files and printers as well as sharing your dial-up internet connection.
I used a shared dial-up for years it really wasn't too bad. Obviously if two users are trying to download files at the same time there is a performance hit. But for general web surfing would would not likely notice a difference.

-dave

 

[jpr62902]

Hey Moon,

I thought LapLink used the parallel ports?? I do know you need a null modem cable for LapLink to work. Comments?

 

[texbaylea]

Laplink now uses USB ports also parallel or serial. I don't see the need to go to XP as 2000 Pro has the same abilities with very little difference.

Vernon

 

[Jagmandave]

My only justification for going to XP was both to improve over 98 and because the file transfer, printer sharing and so on wizards are built in - they may also be in 2000, I don't know.
If he's happy with 98, fine, but I found the upgrade to XP made my life considerably easier in many areas.........other than that, you all are right on target, but he just needs to figure out what he wants to do, then he can get the "best" answer.........