atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking Networking desktop PC with a netbook?

I'm helping a friend get set up with her new life and she's trying to make use of what she has to get by as economically as she can.

She has a netbook that she got from Verizon Wireless and uses it in lieu of paying for cable or DSL Internet access. She has asked me if there's any way that she can establish a connection to the Internet through her netbook and network it with her desktop PC. My first answer was YES, but then I thought that I should double-check here first.

I figured a simple peer-peer connection with a crossover cable would be easiest, but I'd need some adult supervision to make that happen if possible. A step up would (and should) be to use a small switch to allow her to include her printer. I think I know what I'm talking about, but I'm not too proud to admit to my shortcomings.

Am I chasing my tail here or is this a viable option? I would really appreciate any help in making me look like I know what I'm doing (if you know what I mean). Keep in mind that I'm an old-school telephone man, so I'd probably need to do this setup over the phone. I'll return the favor or pay for any support you all can provide.

Ed,
Been a while since I've done this, but here goes:
From your description, I'm assuming the netbook has both a wireless antennae and a NIC, and that the wireless has DHCP enabled for the Verizon wireless application. If these cases are true, set the network card (not the wireless) to a fixed IP address (10.0.0.1 will work), then set the NIC in her desktop to an IP in the same range (10.0.0.2). If you have to specify a subnet, 255.255.255.0. I always try to make sure both PC's are in the same workgroup. This should enable you to use a simple crossover cable. Any problems, give a holler and I'll PM you my cell number. Any, yes, I think I know what you mean!
Bill

I think you will need to look at internet Connection Sharing under help in Windows.

This may require 2 NICS on the Netbook
I don't think just being on the same network will allow sharing without a router, but it's been a long time since I set up a deal like this.

Ed

I recently set up something similar for my son

I used internet connection sharing In this case internet reaches the server via USB then goes out on the NIC

what ports are available on the netbook ?

Theres also another solution which is pretty cool and that is to turn the laptop into a wireless router that uses the built in wireless to function as a router and share the internet access. If it has Windows 7 then theres some free open source software here that will do the trick. https://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/ With Windows XP you can setup the wireless adapter in AD-Hoc mode and enable ICS to get pretty much the same result. I dont know how well it will work with Verizon's Access Manager software.

Heres a couple of good explanations of Ad-Hoc mode for anyone interested.

https://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/1451421

https://searchwarp.com/swa25148.htm

Skip, the netbook has a wireless NIC, USB ports and a wired NIC. She'd like to establish the Internet connection via the netbook and use it as a server. It would then connect to the desktop PC via a cable of some type. At least that is how I envision doing this. She's not very computer savvy and I'm not too far behind her.

Follow up: After reviewing the above information, it seems to be fairly straight-forward. My only question would be whether I need to use a standard patch cable between the desktop PC and the netbook or would it need to be a crossover cable?

Crossover cable. As a general rule like devices use crossover and dissimilar devices use straight through. pc to pc crossover switch to switch crossover pc to switch straight through. Keep in mind that some devices do have AutoX and it wouldnt matter if you used straight through or crossover as either will work.

I thought so, but I just wanted to make sure. Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'll be sure to report back to let everyone know how things went. It looks pretty easy to me (so far).

If either one of the PC's has a gigabit NIC, then you can get by using a stright-thru cable. If I am correct (and I may be way off) but I think gigabit ports/NIC's are auto-sensing when it comes to crossover/straight-thru cables.

Hard to say for sure, but I seriously doubt it. I'll just be prepared with both types of cables, etc. just in case. Thanks for the additional suggestion.

No dice so far. I've tried with my own Netbook for hours tonight using MS networking instructions to no avail.

I tried calling Verizon Wireless and they said no way, but then immediately jumped into a sales pitch for a WWLAN adapter. When I said no, they suggested that I get on the phone with HP in India.

Any other ideas for a wired connection between a Netbook and PC via a crossover LAN cable or USB before I get out my translation dictionary and give up six hours of my life on the phone with Mohinder?

I'm not sure you need a crossover cable , have you tried it with a straight through cable ?

I recall needing to change the ip address range of the server output and host to a different range than the server in

Ed-

I think all you have to do is set the Netbook's wired NIC to a static IP, and the desktop's NIC to a static IP that is one off from that, like Rover outlined above.

But on the desktop, you will also set the Default Gateway to the Netbook's static IP. Set the DNS to 4.2.2.2

Recently did this on a Voicemail Pro, where the customer switched from DSL to an AT&T wireless USB thingie on a server, and works great.

What OS is this?

It is XP Home Edition on both.

I think ive still got a laptop around here with Verizon broadband on it. Let me do some testing and ill let you know exaclty what you need to do.

That is too cool. Thanks for offering to do that, "Tito".

I'm bumping this because I need to come up with a solution by the weekend, so any additional feedback will be greatly appreciated. It is a fairly long drive from here, so I'm hoping to avoid multiple trips if you know what I mean. Thanks again for all of the suggestions. I'll surely be trying them all.

Ed, Skip nailed it with his link to https://support.microsoft.com/kb/306126

I have an Acer netbook, with 802.11 wifi and wired ethernet. Also have an old Thinkpad running Win98, and only ethernet.

On the netbook, go to the wireless network connection, right click, properties, then the Advanced tab. Tic the box for "Allow other network users to to connect through this computer's Internet connection"

It will set the wired ethernet connection to 192.168.0.1, subnet of 255.255.255.0

On the Thinkpad (your desktop computer), set the ethernet to 192.168.0.2, subnet 255.255.255.0. Set the Gateway to 192.168.0.1.

I was able to ping and browse by IP address. When I set the DNS Server to 4.2.2.2, I am now able to ping and browse by regular http names.

Oh, and use a crossover cable!

Ed, I was out of the office for two days for my anniversary but I'm back today so Ill test a setup with Verizon wireless to make sure its going to work right. Ive read some reports of people having trouble sharing Verizon because of the Zerizon Manager software but ill test it to see what happens and let you know.

OK, works good.

go to start, connect to, right click on Verizon Wireless, click on make default, right click again and this time go to properties. Click on advanced and check all three boxes if not already checked and also choose the local area connection in the drop down box. Hit apply and ok. Thats it. you should now be able to use a crossover cable in between the two computers and access the internet on both. You dont have to worry about ip addresses as turning on ICS enables the DHCP server on the loca area connection and Windows will take care of managing the IP address assignment.

Well, I got it to work with my own netbook and PC at home, but I had to use a combination of everyone's information.

I wasn't having any luck with anything happening automatically, Tito. I changed the IP/DNS information to static and it worked like a champ.

You guys are great for taking the time to help me with this. I'm sure I'll be able to retrace my steps at my friend's place. Thank you so much for all of your help!

Ed,
Isn't that why we're all here?
Bill

Very true, but it is still a good feeling when on the receiving end now and then!

Well, believe it or not, the sense of urgency for this project took the back seat and I finally got around to setting this up tonight. As expected, everything worked perfectly.

My only obstacle was that the driver for her NIC was missing. I can only assume that her original dial-up MSN software did this, but who knows? After getting the original CD containing drivers and utilities, I got the NIC working and came out looking as if I knew what I was doing.

Again, thanks guys for helping me get this going. This place really is amazing.

I know this is old, but another ISP independent DNS server is Google's at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.8.4. Of course if your ISP looses the route to the backbone then you will have other problems.

Windows 'tracert -d <host>' and Linux/Mac 'traceroute -d <host>' will help you diagnose routing problems. The <host> can be either a name or an IP. The -d speeds it up by not trying to resolve host names during the process.