bleh123

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My friend has 2 laptops and we wanna connect them together so then we can play LAN games and shiy, the problem is, one of them doesnt have a Lan card, and we dont have money to buy one, (actually, Im just too lazy, but shh) anyways, is it possible to network two computers via serial or parrallel port or USB by any cnahce? I doubt it, but my friend wants to find out anyways, anys ideas?

dante2

there's a cable you can buy to do it via usb..

wolf68k

Serial or parrallel ports, yes, but don't ask me how. Try Google; network serial port (or something along those lines)

For USB, the takes some cash (which you seem that you don't want to spend), you need a sepcial USB cable for that like this.

But you might save yourself some money and headaches just getting a real network card for your laptop. I've found one for $7US using Froogle, but it was made by Compaq

Pacemaker

A null modem cable would be the old school way. I would go for the newer USB networking adapter cables if i were you.

bleh123

Actually, for some strange reason my friend's 3+ year old computer has Firewire IEEE 1394 connection and so does his laptop, anyone know how to network that stuff? Im trying right now, but no luck, it seems the laptop doesnt have drivers.

jshaw001

seriously just go out and get a PC card NIC, or a USB to Ethernet adapter, there is always the null modem way, but I doubt you would be able to find those an more(or you could make one it's easy http://www.nullmodem.com/NullModem.htm) but if you are playing any newer games I don't think they support null modem.

wolf68k

First you need to get the drivers that the laptop needs for the firewire, after that setting it up should be easy if both machines are running XP.
From what I've read about Win98 and ME, it's possible but unreliable.
But for both running XP, it's said to get a a simple firewire cable (not longer than 15feet long) connected to to both and you're done.
You can only use TCP/IP, no IPX/SPX, protocols. But you will get a 400Mbps (that's Megabit, not megabyte) network.

Coopy

It works quite well too.

elfoozo

Screw all that firewire monkey business. Go get 2 of the $45 gigabit cards from D-Link and a crossover cable. Then you can leech each others porn in a fraction of the time.

dizza

Maybe you didn't hear the guy saying he didn't have the money to buy a card...so buying 2 $45 Gigabit cards isn't going to work. Not to mention, no one needs a gigabit network in their house. Way overkill.

Use either the firewire connection or a USB cable. Null modem cables going through the serial ports or parallel ports are going to be godly slow.

David

elfoozo

I heard what he said just fine... but evidently you missed the part where he said he was just too lazy... No one needs gigabit in their house? Hell, no one needs multiple computers in their house either but they do that too.

If he's going to have to buy a firewire cable, he might as well just do ethernet and expand his ability to drag his pc into other networks for LAN parties too. And since the gigiabit cards are cheap now and will run all the way back to 10 Mbps... why not?

And 15 feet away?? C'mon... that's just gay. Who wants to cozy up next to their buddy while they'rer leeching files off 'em?

dizza

I agree that a network is the way to go.. but not gigabit. Obviously he doesn't do much transfering of files back and forth right now, nor does he play games against his buddy right now via a network of sorts. So unless he's going to be doing hard core transfers back and forth, gigabit is a waste. 10/100 cards can be had for $5.

David

nobadeer

talk about pita, netowkr with USB? Just get a $40 switch and get a card off of ebay. if you get bith off of ebay you won't spend more than $50 and won't have to worry about all the fun networking problems

elfoozo

$5 network card? New? Plus works out of the box for any Joe? No obscure Taiwanese drivers to fight with? How about a link where he can get a card that cheap? I wouldn't mind shopping that vendor. Hopefully the cost of shipping isn't too insane?

And he did say that he did want to do gaming with his buddies so I still stand by that cheap gigabit card isn't out of line. Four years ago, I'd agree with you that gigabit was overkill. Not these days though when people routinely have 30 GB music and movie collections......