New "Mick" in town

[billy02]

Top O' The Mornin'
I'm BJ O'Hara & I'm new to this posting stuff. Thought I might have better luck finding relevant results this way. I'm trying to get connected to the net with a pentium II Compaq, Win98SE and a hi-speed cable modem connected with an ethernet controller card. If I connect with a USB port to the modem it works fine. No such luck with the e-card. Any ideas?

 

[HPCE_Larry]

The cable modem needs to be connected to a router before it can be connected to a computer. The connection would run like this: Cable modem connects to the routers WAN port, and then one of the other router connections would be used to connect to the computer. Good Luck!

 

[raybay]

Check your BIOS. Check or upgrade your ethernet driver on www.hp.com. Check your Device Manager to see if there are any flags, red or yellow, then if all looks good but doesn't work, Ethernet cards are only $10 to $14 most places, and used ones are only 5 bucks.
If you have never upgraded your drivers, download and upgrade everything... particularly the BIOS, Chipset, and Internet Controller card.

 

[HPCE_Larry]

If you have a separate card the bios upgrade will likely be superfluous.

 

[raybay]

But you never know, with those early Pentium II Compaqs... many never had the ethernet activated properly in the BIOS of the early and mid '90s. Upgrading the BIOS is the easier way to fix it.

Also, using Windows 98SE instead of the Windows 98 of the early versions makes a difference on some installs. If you don't have a W98Se disc, borrow one.

As for the Cable Modem connection, You must begin the software connection with the Cable Modem disconnected in some units... then connect it in the middle of the install process... If you have the actual install disc, it will tell you when, otherwise, you have to guess.

 

[billy02]

Thanks to everyone who replied! Turns out the answer to my "complicated" problem was beginner stuff. (Shut down computers, reset cable modem, reboot computer.) That solved the problem but with a glitch. I have 2 computers in my home office. One is "my" computer and the other is my "troubleshooting" computer. "My" computer connects to the modem with a USB port. The other connects with the ethernet card. The glitch is that to switch the connection from one box to the other I have to do the shutdown/reset routine, then the first box to boot gets the connection. No simultaneous connection. Waaaa!!! "My computer, "Gertrude", is running XP Home and the other, "Serenity" is the one w/98SE. Gert's NTSF and Sere's FAT32 so we're talking "mixed marraige" at best. Ultimately I'm hoping to network these girls for file, resource and connection sharing using my existing connections. Don't ask much, do I? Anybody know how/if I can do that?

 

[SNGX1275]

You can do that with Windows ICS. You'll need a NIC in your XP computer that is connected to the modem via USB and a Crossover cable. Then run the network wizard on the XP machine again with the crossover cable connected to both computer's NICs, choose that this computer connects directly and other computers connect through it. Complete the wizard and it asks about making a disk for the other computer - if both have floppy drives this is by far the easiest way to go. If they don't, then your XP machine is set up and don't touch it, then go to the 98 computer and re-set up your internet, and then set up your network. The XP computer will have to be on for any internet access on the 98 machine, but as far as the 98 machine is concerned it is connected directly to the internet.

 

[raybay]

For the greatest ease in use, try Ethernet on both, or if necessary, USB on both. The restart will be required for the mixed cabeling. Ethernet is much faster, of course, and much of it is a timing problem.

 

[billy02]

Thanks Again
SNGX1275, I'll see if I can find a crossover cable.