Why won't my computer recognise a LAN?

[Paddy]

I have two computers which I want to wire up to a LAN. I've tried linking both directly with a crossover cable and also connecting both to a hub.

The one computer recognises when the LAN is connected, but for some reason the other one won't. It doesn't even list a Local Area Connection under the Network Connections! Instead I have this "1394 Connection", which seems to be constantly connected although I have no idea what to.

Can anyone suggest why this might be happening?

 

[office politics]

no lan connection means the computer does not recognize the network card in your machine. check device manager for your network adapter.

 

[Paddy]

It recognises the 1394 Net Adapter, which is the on board net adapter.

Does it need a separate network card?

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

have you installed the drivers located on the CD that you got with the motherboard?

 

[Law]

1349 is not your network card. That is the firewire or iLink port. It's recognize as a network adapter because firewire behave almost like an ethernet card, encapslating packets and so on. If you have buildin NIC card, check BIOS to see if it's enable. Then check device manager if it's listed, if it's enable without a driver, windows will report that it's not functioning correctly. That means you'll need to provide a driver. If it's not listed in device manager there can be two reasons. 1) it's not enable in BIOS and 2) it's dead and you need to buy a PCI NIC card.

 

[Paddy]

Right, I've enabled the ethernet adapter and it's recognised it now.

The next thing I want to be able to do is let this computer share the internet connection on the other computer (which is wireless) - is this possible?

 

[Law]

Yea, get a wireless router. If you have broadband internet like DSL or Cable you can get a router and connect it to the modem. Then connect the PC to the router by wires or wirelessly.

 

[Paddy]

I already have a wireless connection set up between the computer and a router. I now want the computer with the wireless connection to share access over a wired connection, if that makes sense.

 

[Law]

A little bit. So you want to use wires instead of wireless connection. If your computer came with a ethernet card, sure you can. Just buy a straight-through cables and connect it to the router. It should be like plug and play, you don't have to configure anything if the router setting was never changed.

 

[Paddy]

I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very clearly

Let me see if this diagram describes the situation...

Right... Comp A currently has an internet connection, what I want is for Comp B to share that connection via a crossover wire. If that's possible.