Home Network Help

[bing64]

Right here goes.......

I want to build a home network. As of the minute I have two PCs up and running, I am in the process of building another 2. My PC (specs as below) is in a seperate building at the back of the hosue, and my family use a desktop replacement laptop upstairs inside the house. The new ones will go in an upstairs bedroom and downstairs in the living room. Also I have a laptop whcih I will ocasionally want to connect to the network. The PCs will have a mix of XP Pro and Home.

There are two seperate phone/asdl lines. One in my outhouse and one in the house. Both have 2.2mbps BT bband connections. I dont want to share my one (outhouse), but i want the in house one to be shared between the 3/4 pcs.

I want my pc to be the main file server and i want to be able to administrate and access the network from my room including their net connection.

All i have at the minute is a 4 port asdl modem router connected to my pc through an ethernet cable. The broadband connection in my house is curretnly connected with a USB ASDL modem.

Is what I want to do possible? What do I need? How do I do it?

I would greatly appreciate any help. Email me if youd prefer. oldbear64@hotmail.com cheers guys.

 

[bing64]

game consoles will need connection also

 

[m3trj]

OK firstly you should get an ADSL router for the in-house network. Connect all the computers to that using standard cat-5 cable, and connect it to the ADSL. They should then be able to get on the Internet. You should then connect one of the ports on the ADSL router to your computer, if you have an ethernet port (and if you have enough ports on the router, otherwise use a hub as well). Your computer can still use your own internet using the USB thing, but the two networks will be connected together for file sharing, etc.

 

[bing64]

So I can scrap the USB modem if I have a 2 ASDL routers. I already have one connected on my monster PC outside. So I would have to plug an ethernet cable to the router inside aswell? How would i administer the network, meaning how would I limit accounts etc?

 

[m3trj]

Yeah with an ADSL router you can scrap the USB thing. The two routers are then connected via ethernet cable, yeah.

As far as administering, that's a software thing that I don't know much about.

 

[bing64]

Thank you very much. Can i put a wireless adapter one one pc so that in future a laptop can access the network?

 

[m3trj]

It's better to get a wireless router, much better in fact. I went to endless trouble trying to get an "ad-hoc" connection to work (PC-PC), and in the end I got a royter and it worked within 10 minutes.

A wireless router still has wired ports, by the way, so it would still be compatable with your network.

 

[bing64]

Will two different brand routers work together on the same network. What network software do you recommend. I want to retain XP on all of the PCs.