Help on setting up a direct link between 2 PCs.

hamster

Equipment being set up:
* Laptop with 3Com 3C920 Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller (3C905C-TX Compatible) *

Hi,

I have a p4 laptop (Win Xp Home) with a 3Com 3C920 Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller (3C905C-TX Compatible) card. It shows up on the right of the taskbar as "Local Area Connection: A network cable is unplugged". The icon has a red X beside it. What do I need to do to connect" it?

I have a red cable connected directly to another PC (not set up yet but with recognized card). Printed on cable is: Type CM Patch cord. It's about 3 metres long.

When I do an "IPCONFIG" I get:

Ethernet adaptor Local Area Connection:
Media State...... : Media disconnected

I can't set up the network until I get the card "connected". It's an integrated card with the rj45 socket only visible. Looking at my computer hardware settings, it see the card as named above and has an assigned irq and memory range etc. But is there something else I may have to do ? Maybe I need to go into Local Area Connection

Properties and assign an ip address of some sort?


Background Info:............
I'm trying to set up a direct connection between 2 PCs (Win XP). The other machine has yet to be configured correctly.

Any help would greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Capt'n Midnight

You need a crossover cable... - this connects the transmit pins at one end to the receive ones at the other end (and visa versa)

http://www.marx-computers.com
into network and go to the bottom - crossover cable is €6

If the other card is a combo (ie with a half inch pipe comming out the end) you might need to change it's media settings - usually it is on auto detect - in which case switch off the PC - turn on XP first and then when it has booted turn on the other one.

That should sort out the physical link (lights on - no red X's)

Now you can start on the network settings:
Also check that both PC's have the same protocols eg: if only one has TCPIP no joy (NetBEUI means not having to figure out IP's) also you have to do there is make sure both are part of the same workgroup.
Also you will probably need to turn off a firewall in XP if you turned it on. Also unless one of the PC's has file sharing enabled you won't see anything...

hamster

Sorry if I didn't give the full details here is my situation in full:
Straight connect between a laptop and PC via network cards...

PC:
===
* The network card in the PC is: Realtek RTL8029(AS) PCI Ethernet Adapter.
* it's a combo, ie it has a "pipe"(BNC?) and normal square-ish Rj45 connector.
* There are two leds on it. One constant green.
* In Device Manager, under the card's properties, under the advanced tab:
I see one and only property: line speed.
I can pick the following values:
1) AUI / 10Base5 (currently on this, green light even when disconnected)
2) BNC / 10Base2 (same as 1))
3) TP Full Duplex (orange light constant)
4) TP Half Duplex (orange light constant)

Which one makes sense? Default was TP Half Duplex.

Either way, it seems to have a local area network, duration time ticking away at
10Mbps. I can disable and enable the card.


LAPTOP
======

* The network card in the laptop is: 3Com 3C920 Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller (3C905C-TX Compatible)
* It's not a combo, ie it's an integrated card on the side of the laptop with a square-ish plug. No leds.
* In Device Manager, under the card's properties, under the advanced tab:
I see loads of properties with their corresponding values:
802.1p Support "Disable"
Cable Hold Off Timer "15"
Cable to Detect Timer "6"
DoubleNego "Enable"
Down Poll Rate "8"
Flow Control "Enable"
InitDelayCount "0"
LnkChk "Disable"
Media Type "Hardware Default" (10,100 Half and full duplex available or auto select)
PHYCmpat "Enable"
Rx Checksum Offload "Enable"
Tx Checksum Offload "Enable"

I can "disable" the network card and when I try to enable it: "A network cable is unplugged"... Red X
It's always there.


The cable:
=========
I have a short network cable connected between the XP laptop and PC labelled "patch cord CAT.5 UTP"

This sounds like CAT5 cable, ie cross-over ?


It's a bit confusing as I don't know what side is to blame? I supspect the laptop and then the cable? Does the laptop's card "have" to have the cable inserted before it can be enabled?

Any ideas? :ninja:

Capt'n Midnight

99.9% of CAT5 cables are straight through (they usually have to be made up specially) so unless you know it is a crossover cable it isn't. (The way you can tell is that a normal cable the orange(2) and green (6) wires are in the same position at each end - with a crossover cable they swap places)

Default was TP Half Duplex. - Good (only try full duplex after you've been able to transfer data for a week )

Krusty_Clown

Surely sounds like a cable problem to me...

If you work in a company with an IT dept, ask them to make you up a cross-over cable, or do as Capt'n Midnight suggests, buy one from Marx computers...

Do not (I repeat: do not) go to CompuStore and ask them for a Cross-over cable. They will likely try and sell you a parallel printer cable

Once you have the two PCs connected, the relevant OS'es will detect that it is a private network and will assign private network IP addresses to both pcs (assuming they both have TCP/IP protocol installed)..

hamster

Thanks for help!

I'll get my mitts on a crossover....