Need help with networking

[wee96]

I'm in somewhat of a problem. I recently built a new house and had some coaxial line strung from one room to another. I have two computers, and wish to network them together using this coaxial line. The reason I want to do this is to connect both computers to one cable modem, which I'll be getting soon. I understand I will need a hub to do this. The problem is, I hear a cable modem is twisted pair and not coaxial. That means I would have to have a hub with coaxial ports and a twisted pair uplink right? I'm not an expert so I may be wrong, could someone explain exactly what I should do, and which hub I should buy? Thanks in advance.

[Dominus]

You don't need a hub. Just get a NIC for the modem, use the existing network you have, and run a proxy/firewall such as Wingate or Spoonproxy to share the modem. I'm not familiar with co-ax NICs, but the same principle should apply.

[BC]

You shouldn't even need all of that. If you are running win98 just get the SE version it comes with modem sharing. But from what I have heard of cable modems you can plug them into a hub. Now what you'll want to do is get a hub that has BNC/Coax. AND twisted pair i.e. RJ-45 connecters. And they are readily avalible and cheap too. Then what you'll want to do is run the cable modem into the hub and then run a coax cable from the hub into your pc then out of your pc to the other pc. If that makes sence. OR you can get another network card with an RJ-45 connecter in it and set it up I don't think that you need to share modem and all of that.

[Dominus]

Plugging a cable modem into a hub seems to cause some kind of security hazzard, or at least thats what the local service provider says. Using one comp as a proxy firewall was what the recommended to me. you can then plug the proxy\firewall comp into a hub and share the line to as many comps as you want then, with better security. If you already have the 2 NICs and the cable wired, just install the cable modem's NIC in the faster computer and use either that "modem sharing" feature of Win98 SE, or set up your own proxy. Worked for me, but I don't claim to be an expert in the networking field.

[wee96]

I know you guys are gonna laugh, but does NIC mean Network Interface Card? Are you saying that I should have two ethernet cards in one machine, one for the modem and one for the hub? Im not real good with networking so I have to ask alot of details

[800XL]

There are no stupid questions here. NIC stands for exactly that, Network Interface Card. I've heard of people able to plug a cable modem into a hub, then add 2+ PCs to the hub and have them all work, but it is not going to always work, and there may be problems with doing it that way. What I would recommend, is that you install the cable modem and a network card connected to it to one machine, then add a second NIC to that machine and connect it to the rest of your machines. (Either thru a hub with twisted pair wiring, or with a segment of Coax cable) Then you will need to run some sort of proxy software like Win98 SE Internet Connection sharing, Wingate, Sygate, SpoonProxy, or etc and configure your other machine(s) to connect thru your primary one. Now for the connection between computers, coax is probably not the best choice. It must be the correct type of cable for networking (RG48? I forget) and not TV cable coax (RG58? again, not remembering) for things to work right. Then you have to have two nework cards with coax BNC connectors on them, T connectors, and a terminator for each end. Twisted pair just ends up so much simpler in the end. You can probably fish some CAT5 twisted pair thru using the coax as a 'pull rope'. Tie the cables at one room (and tape them, A LOT, so they don't snag on things or come apart) and then pull the coax out and the other in.