[Pope John]

okay, i know shit about networking. the rundown is that i have two laptops running through one hup. but my modem is only recognizing one ip. Or maybe I should say, only one laptop will connect to the internet at a time.

So what should I do? Do I set both computers tot he same ip? Do i set one as the gateway? I don't really know hwo to do either.

please help. I'm tired of having to share my computer!

both laptops are running vista if that helps.

[Daveyiv2k1]

um you need a router or a pc to perform NAT. a router would be easiest imo. But you can use ICS in windows if you really have to, but its junk. Your ISP will only provide you 1 ip address so you need NAT to send data to your internal lan from that external IP to the specific internal lan IP

so basically yes, you need a gateway, whether it be a router or an ICS server. I would strongly recommend a router though

[Pope John]

so what's the point of friggin ethernet hubs?

[Daveyiv2k1]

hubs are just basically to expand your LAN, or if your ISP provided multiple ip addresses you could use a hub. A hub and switch basically serve the same purpose, only do it a little differently. For example, if you had a router with a built in 4 port switch, but needed to hook up say 5 computers, you could connect a 4 port hub to the router and it would offer you a total of 6 ports, 3 on the router, and 3 on the hub, one port on each end would be taken by the ethernet cable connecting the two devices.

You don't really see hubs too often anymore, mostly just switches. But they are what you would use to connect a lot of people at a lan party or something together. Home based routers usually include a 4 port switch in them, so it takes the data sent to your ISP provided external IP address and then forwards it out the correct switch port that your PC is connected to. A hub itself is a "dumb" device, it only takes in whatever data is sent to it and then forwards it out all ports, where as a switch will forward it out only the correct port. However, neither hub nor switch will provide the NAT for you. As you found out, only one device will be able to obtain your ISP provided ip address at a time. So your options are to either get a router or use ICS to act as your gateway

[tex]

go buy a router cheapass =p you can get a decent linksys or dlink for $40 on sale tops nowadays

[Pope John]

i'm not cheap. i just never knew all this stuff. i thought that's what this hub was for. i'll probably get one tomorrow or this weekend if i can get a ride into town.

thanks for all the info guys. i knew i could depend on tweak.

[Electric_Head]

You can only do it on a hub if one of the laptops has 2 network cards. If one of them has 2 cards you can setup ICS. If not, you need a router like others mentioned.

ICS Host Computer Setup – Windows Vista