Home Networking ADSL

**Bing Fung** · 17 January 2002, 01:44 Thursday

Hey Paul, Great questions, unfortunately I'm not sure I can answer them. I don't know a lot about networking. Kevin or Andrew would know a lot more on this.

You are correct on the printer sharing, the only catch is you will need a printer that supports the Cat5 connection.

I think it best to set up your main PC, add the router and then the PC's (that was a gimme :W ). Setting up of the router, I'm not so sure, Kevin or Andrew should be able to help out.

You shouldn't have to use Zone alarm once the router is in place. It is my understanding that a hardware solution for Firewalls is the best line of defence.

Wireless, humm... That sounds like a great solution, for you would have LAN lines to your desktops and then a wireless link to your Lap top. I didn't know they made a connector like that. Kewl!

Again, if you don't get anymore answers here maybe ask Kev & Drew, for they will know

Bing

**Andrew Pratt** · 17 January 2002, 12:48 Thursday

Paul you are descirbing my current set up to a tee (minus the wireless stuff) I'll asume we're talking about non wireless for now since its basically the same as wireless.

What I'd recomned you do is head on over to Future shop and pick up the SMC barricade router. It was on sale awhile back up its reasonably priced if not and a better router then the linksys ones. There's a US robotics one as well that's a clone of the SMC and I know it was on sale at FS as well..either will do but given the choice the SMC is the one I'd get. The barricade comes with four switched ports on the front for your PCs (you can plug a hub into one if you need more then four) and on the back there's the printer port. To share ADSL you only need enter the routers setup menu which is done through a web browser and enter in your user name and password and check of auto connect and user time out at zero..this will keep you connected 24/7. Now for IP addresses you have several options the simplest is to let the router assign IP's as required..this is DHCP. Basically then all you have to do to the neworked PC's is tell them to use a lan connection and they will grab an IP address when they need one. You can also manually assign IPs if you want them to remain constant which might be nice for gaming but I've found my two always seems to have the same two addresses even if logging off and on so its not an issue for me. For setting up the printer you can either configure it as a network printer like you do now or use the printer port of the router. I choose to use the printer port since print jobs kept slowing my PC down which was annoying when gaming

The only thing to look out for here is that many printers use bi directional communtication with the printer to indicate ink levels etc...the routers don't allow bi direction though so you have to disable that in the printers setup menu's...my Epson 870 photo printer works great doing this.

As far as security since you will now be behind a true hardware firewall your network is invisible to the outside world and safe from hackers. The only problem you could face is if a hacker sent your a trojan that opened up a port that he could enter though but thats were your virus scanner comes into play. If you have a hardware firewall and a good virus scanner consider yourself protected.

thats really all there is too it..I installed my LAN, router and ADSL in about an hour and I was further behind you as far as networking skills..its very simple

here's some links for you

SMC user forum

Pract. networked SMC forum

This is the USR version of the SMC

The SMC barricade

Wireless version of the SMC Barricade

**Andrew Pratt** · 17 January 2002, 12:53 Thursday

as far as printer sharing the SMC has a regular printer port on it so you don't need anything special there...the printers with LAN cards in them are designed to handle several PC's firing print jobs at them at once...the SMC will take care of that internally for you so all you need is a regular printer that can have its bi directional inputs turned off (or one that doens't use/require it.

**Bing Fung** · 17 January 2002, 16:19 Thursday

Great job Andrew, Thanks!

Bing

**Lex** · 18 January 2002, 15:44 Friday

Don't forget cable modems, if they are available, might actually be faster, and maybe easier to configure. I loved my cable setup, until I lost it recently. Oh well!

For cable, I know a thing or two, but no experience with ADSL. The link-sys worked fine for me. Some printers have network printing software, so you can theoretically still have a network printer, connected to the parallel on 1 of the PCs. of course, it requires installing remote printer software on each node.

Lex

**P-Dub** · 18 January 2002, 16:48 Friday

Thanks Pr@. I'll have to keep an eye on those SMC routers. In fact the wireless unit is really looking pretty cool. It comes with 3 ports for cable connection, plus its got wireless capabilities. I may go that route to start. That way I'm not buying a wireless base next month.

Here's another something I saw. There's a Linksys Wireless unit, with only a 1 uplink port. I'm wondering if I can just connect my existing hub to that uplink port, and then share it amoung my other PC's and use the wireless for the laptop. The beauty of the Linksys unit is that it comes with a wirless PC card. Oh decisions, decisions.

Lex, what I don't like about cable is that I have to wait around for a guy to come and install it, that is very inconvienent, plus they have to drag some cable to my room. Though initially it would probably be cheaper. With ADSL, I'm like 3 blocks from a central switch, which means I'm pretty much guaranteed fast connection, I've got my phone jack right there and ready to go, and I just have to pick up a Quickconnect kit from the store and I'm ready to go. At the moment they are offering 2 months free access, plus a $100 credit. The only downside is the initial purchase of the kit would run me $269 plus taxes.

Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

**Andrew Pratt** · 19 January 2002, 11:30 Saturday

Paul they charge you for the kit? Mine was "free" since I guess its built into the monthly rates...

**P-Dub** · 25 January 2002, 15:47 Friday

Just an update. Haven't moved on the ADSL yet.

The Linksys that I mentioned above is not that great a deal. Turns out you have to plug in the PCMCIA wireless card into the router as that is what creates the wirless capability. The uplink port is there so it would connect to my hub easily. There is no print server on that particular unit. So for the Linksys unit, I'd have to go with another router/switch/wireless, with no print server.

Now I'm back to just looking at a hardwire solution, like the SMC. It's cheaper and more secure as I read somewhere that the wireless security standard is not that great.

Andrew: Yes, there is a charge for the kit as it is a do it yourself job. I could go the other route, but I would need an installer to come in, and the monthly cost would go up by $5/month.

**Andrew Pratt** · 25 January 2002, 16:59 Friday

Paul thats really strange re the charge...for my DSL it was a simple matter of calling up the phone company and telling them I wanted to sign up and they told me where to pick up the kit...no other setup fee just my $37 a month rate.

**Bing Fung** · 25 January 2002, 18:12 Friday

Paul that is strange they would charge for a set-up kit....

Everything is free through Sasktel.

Bing

**SiliGoose** · 26 January 2002, 19:41 Saturday

I'm at the other end of Paul's problem...

I have 2 PC's attached to a router which is attached to my DSL modem. The two PCs share the DSL connection just fine but I can't share files between the two. I've played with the networking settings and just don't know what I'm doing.

One PC is running WinXP Home, and the other is on Win2000 Pro.

Anyone know of a good website that can walk a networking idiot like myself through this?

Thanks!

-Sili

**Andrew Pratt** · 26 January 2002, 21:47 Saturday

Goose try out practicallynetworking as a start. First off though assuming you know the IP addresses of each of the network cards can you ping them from a DOS prompt? (I think you should be if the DSL connection is working) Are you using DHCP or manuallly assigning the IP addresses? Next I'd check to see if the Domain names are the same...there's a good chance that this is the problem.

try this site for more specific help

Practically Networked -

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/

**SiliGoose** · 27 January 2002, 00:17 Sunday

I'm using DHCP. I know that much.

Thanks for the link, Andrew. I just killed my main PC so I'll read up on this info once I figure out what the hell I did this time

Thanks,

-Sili

**P-Dub** · 17 March 2002, 19:19 Sunday

I'm finally going to get hooked up. There's a new promo going on so I'll be picking up the kit in the next week or so. Then I'll probably go with the SMC wireless unit. I'll let you know if there's any file sharing problems, as that's a pretty important thing for me as well.

Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

**P-Dub** · 18 March 2002, 22:05 Monday

Okay, just bought the setup kit. So I'm on my way. Hope to get it setup tonight. Will pickup the rest of the gear sometime this week.

Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

**P-Dub** · 18 March 2002, 22:58 Monday

Got everything basically hookedup, but won't get full service till next Monday.

Oh well, gives me more time to futz about getting the wireless working.

**P-Dub** · 04 April 2002, 18:02 Thursday

So far my ADSL hookup has been a bust. Can't stay connected for more than 5 miniutes. Usual uptime is 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Have been working with tech support, and they are changing my port today. So hopefully when I get home I'll actually have full connection.

The wireless networking portion is ok. Not the greatest as I'm going through several walls. The print server portion isn't working, or I haven't been able to get it working, so my printer is still being shared off my system.

Once I get ADSL up and running, consistently, I'll takle the printer situation.

**Andrew Pratt** · 04 April 2002, 21:31 Thursday

For the printer there's a good chance the problem is the feedback your printer is trying to send to the PC though the router. To get my Epson Photoprinter to work properly I had to go into its setup properties and disable bi directional support and it now works like a charm. Werid on the dropping your connection...does the DSL drop when you don't use the router but connect it directly to a single PC?

**P-Dub** · 05 April 2002, 00:29 Friday

The DSL drops regardless of direct connect or through the router. It dropped as I was going to reply a couple hours ago.

I think it might be a line issue. I've gone a plugged into a differnt jack and it seems to be working better. Well I'm still online after 3 minutes. We'll just see how long this lasts.

Otherwise I may have to schedule in a home visit by a technitian. I'd like to be home during that visit. The call is in so we'll see what happens. Better post or I'll get disconected. :P

**Andrew Pratt** · 05 April 2002, 12:02 Friday

when you are connected try running a speed test from http://www.dslreports.com and see what you get for a line speed...that might point to some line problems...there's also other tests there you can run...

**P-Dub** · 05 April 2002, 14:32 Friday

Well, I was on for a whole 5 minutes. So I've got a tech coming out on Saturday to check the line. I may also swap out the modem as well to see if that make a difference.

Oh, I also tried 2 other phone jacks and they don't make a difference.

**Bing Fung** · 06 April 2002, 14:24 Saturday

Paul, did you run the ADSL line with out the router? I know with my Linksys it was dropping the line connection from time to time. I had to set up Auto detect under IE/Tools/Internet options/connections/lan settings.

You may have to set your router to send packets every few seconds (~30) to maintain the connection.

Those are just some ideas to try.

Good luck and I hope the tech can solve your issues....

Bing

**P-Dub** · 06 April 2002, 17:05 Saturday

So far so good. The tech fixed up some connections at the juncture box and that seems to have fixed the problem. I've also got a D-Link to swap in, incase it's the modem.

This is all setup through the router.

Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

**P-Dub** · 07 April 2002, 03:42 Sunday

Things are going quite well. This is what ADSL is supposed to be like. 1.2 MBS dl and I can get this through the wireless connection as well.

I exchanged my Linksys modem for another one, and I think that has solved the problem. However, I like the DLink better, but that's a loaner, so I'll just have to live with the Linksys. I'll try to do some speedtests.

**P-Dub** · 08 August 2002, 16:51 Thursday

bump up

Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

**Lex** · 09 August 2002, 08:02 Friday

Ask Kev and Drew, Ask Kev and Drew. (whiny taunting voice)(like they are the only ones that know) :LOL: You plug the thingimabobber into the whatchamacallit. Works every time!

Actually, I have heard that ADSL is a little trickier to network than Cable modem, or at least it can be. Is cable not an option Paul?

But I really haven't networked ADSL. I heard they tried to make some of the modems to where you can't network them, but I can't say that's fact.

But what's your point or question now Paul, I couldn't figuer that out.

Lex

**P-Dub** · 09 August 2002, 11:31 Friday

Sorry, I thought I'd move this up for Jeff. I had some router questions that I thought might be relevant.

Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

**Lex** · 12 August 2002, 08:06 Monday

Duh, after I posted, I realized what you had done, I must have been in a morning haze.

Lex

Home Networking ADSL

Home Networking ADSL

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