Hey up

What do I need to buy to connect my downstairs computer to my upstairs computer and share my broadband connection?

Cheers

Chris

A crossover network cable, an hour, and loads of paticience!

David

2 wireless PCI cards, and 1 cable/dsl wireless router and 30minutes.

Two more replies and we'll have it down under a minute.

You seriously overesimate my computer knowledge!

one of my computers is new and flashy, how do I check if I've got a wireless pci card in it?

Cheers

chris

post a picture of the back of your computer and we can tell you

Small aerial is always a giveaway

Answer kinda depends. There's 2 basic options: -

1) Have the upstairs computer connect to the internet via the downstairs computer (which must be on) using Internet Connection Sharing (don't recommend this). In this situation all you need is a crossover cable or pair of wireless network cards to connect the PCs to each other. Cheap, but needs downstairs PC always on.

2) The "proper" way. At the moment your downstairs PC will be connected to an ADSL (or cable?) modem as your internet connection. You will need an "ADSL router" which is basically an ADSL modem with connections for a few PCs. You can then use RJ45 (network wire) to connect each PC to this, or if you use a wireles ADSL router you can have wireless on your PCs.

If you don't know you have wireless, the chances are you don't have it - PCs generally don't come with it as standard you have to buy the cards.

If you ever plan to have the PCs copy large files to/from each other, then I would recommend using wires instead of wireless. Whilst wireless is tidy and convenient it can be slow for copying large (eg video files etc) from one PC to another if you do it regularly.

I trust that's suitably too much information

If at all possible I would recommend running a network cable to each PC from an ADSL router. Wireless is a complete pain in the arse and causes more problems than it solves. Personally my wireless connection is always 'droping out' - I think because so many of my neighbours have wireless routers that the interference is a nightmare. (I can pick up 6 wireless networks from my living room!)

BTW if you do go wireless then implement WPA authentication (WEP can be hacked in seconds). 4 of the 6 networks I can 'see' are completely unprotected!

I have a DLink ADSL router connected to my broadband then directly linked via ethernet to my main PC. I then have a wireless laptop and a works laptop linked into it (this uses my home connection with VPN). I want to try and install WPA but i am struggling. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Steve

WPA should just be an option in your router configuration (as long as it supports it - most decent ones do..)

As for the PC end - what OS are you running? ideal would be Windows XP SP2, in which case you just need to set it up in the properties of the connection.

There are loads of websites offering information on how to set all this up - a quick google returns some pretty good references on how to set it all up.

HTH

[Edited on 26/1/06 by DaveFJ]