Network setup on home computer?

Answer 1

I am going to provide some links to informaton for you, hold on a moment:

For XP:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/default.mspx

For Vista:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/networking.mspx

These pages contain a wealth of information and will help you setup your home network. Just read the information first to get a good overview of the process. It really is not difficult these days to setup a network, not like it was a couple of years ago.

What you need:

A broadband connection, either Cable or DSL, with an external Modem.

A Router, wired or wired/wireless combo. If you currently are not using wireless, it is only a few more dollars to purchase a router with a wireless access point, and I reccomend you do so. It is cheaper to prepare for the future now, than have to replace hardware down the road.

Adapters, wired or wireless or both.

Cables, RJ45 ethernet Cat 5 or Cat 6.

If you do not have an ethernet card installed in your system, you have two options:

Use an external adapter which plugs into a USB port, most are wireless, but I do believe you can locate a wired one as well. This is the easiest method of adding an adapter.

Purchase a 10/100 ethernet card, and install it into an empty bus slot in your system. It will have a port where you can plug an ethernet Cat 5 or Cat 6 Cable into it, and then into the Router port.

Purchase a Wireless card, and plug it into an empty bus slot, then purchase a Wireless adapter and slide it into the card slot. You can purchase combos where the bus card and adapter that slides into it are sold as one package, or you can purchase them seperately.

The Modem will come with one Cat 5 or Cat 6 ethernet Cable, as will the Router.

One Cable hooks the Router up to the Modem, and there is a special port for this hookup. Do NOT hook the Modem cable into a ethernet RJ45 port. There is usually a series of four ports, and another port labled Modem, and it may be a different color. I use Belkin and my Modem port is Yellow, and my Cable ports are gray. Color coding makes it simple hooking up the cables.

Summery:

One (1) Modem, one (1) Router, at least one (1) wired or wireless Adapter per computer, for Wired computers one (1) Ethernet Cable per Wired computer, for Wireless computers, one (1) Wireless Adapter per Wireless computer.

A computer can have both a Wired and an Wireless Adapter installed. Wired is best installed as an internal component, while Wireless is easiest to install using a USB adapter.

When installing an Adapter, you will need to run an Install Disk to install the proper drivers and software for that Adapter. Not difficult in the least.

The Modem and the Router will also have drivers to install via a software on disk. If your modem is already hooked up, it is good to go. The driver(s) for the Router will be installed when you run the Install disk for that hardware device.

Just take installing and adding the hardware components one step at a time. It is easy, just confusing when never done before.

After your hardware is setup, you will need to run the Network Setup Wizard on each networked computer.

If using the WAP--Wireless Access Point in your Router, please be sure to setup security. This is vital, or others can hop onto your Internet connection and steal your bandwidth. Security is easy and keeps people out.

If you will not yet use the WAP, disable it in the Routers configuration pages until you do wish to use it.

Make sure you change the SSID to any name you choose, and setup an Administrator password for the Router configuration pages, or anyone can access them and actually lock you out of your own network. The Admin password will stop that cold, but create one which is not easy to guess.

Good luck and much success setting up your home network.

Answer 2

What type of network?

Answer 3

Okay, and your asking what? Your just making a statement ending with a question mark.