LAN Question....?

[Tetherton]

HI all...Got a quick question. I just bought a Sony VAIO laptop and was wanting to link them together for gaming and file transfering. I have the cable connected to each of the Ethernet ports and ran the 'Set up a Home office....' under network connections....now what ? Thanks for any help....... Travis .....

 

[Taurus]

wait, your vaio laptop has a firewire port, right? since it's sony, it's called iLink. well, your audigy has a firewire port, too. just get a 6-pin to 4-pin cable and you'll have a 400mbps firewire connection, which is faster than a 100mbps lan connection. but only if you want to. it won't really help games.

anyway, go into "my network places", "entire network", "microsoft windows network", and you should see your workgroup and whatever the laptop's is. from there you should be able to access any shared folders on it.

if that's working, then games are a matter of one (faster) computer hosting a server, and the other joining it.

 

[Tetherton]

When I get to 'My Network' the screen is blank....I'm probably doing something wrong...Thanks for any help... Travis

 

[Taurus]

hmm... your network card is installed correctly, right? no (!)'s in device manager or anything? oh, also go into your "local area connection" properties and disable the "internet connection firewall". that gives me problems at lan's.

 

[rettahc]

Are you trying to direct connect the two computers with an ethernet cable? If so I belive that you need a crossover cable.

 

[Taurus]

oh yeah, forgot all about that. in order to have a connection directly from one computer to another, you need a crossover cable. the common ethernet cable is a stright-thru. so get a crossover. just so you know, they look identical.

otherwise you need a hub or switch. then you can use normal cables.

 

[spikemic]

yes if using the ethernet ports with no hub/switch it must be a crossover cable. to make sure when looking, look in connectors on both ends. a regular cable will looks same a crossover, the green and orange pairs are switched.

like so:

 

[Tetherton]

Got It !!! Turned off the Norton Firewalls (both sides) and it worked. Thought that firewalls were only for Internet purposes ..... Just using a Crossover cable for now but will be looking into the Firewire option..... Thanks everyone for helping... Travis