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A Tale of Two Computers
My wife Carole bought a laptop this weekend. She doesn't like the older computer anymore because she says it's too slow to start. I replaced our older computer with her newer computer. I say newer because it is used. She wanted to get a used one because she didn't want Vista. Everything works great with that computer, including the internet connection. We have Comcast cable internet.
I inherited the older computer. I set it up in our guest bedroom. Everything works fine except the internet connection. I have a cable modem for the guest bedroom, but it won't allow me to connect to the internet from there.
I called Comcast and did some preliminary searching online, and it appears that I'll need to get a router. That raises a few questions that I haven't been able to answer yet even though I have spent some time looking.
1. Do the computers have to be networked? It seems silly to network two computers.
2. After a router is installed, will both computers need to "connect" to the router by a wireless connection?
3. Shouldn't I be able to connect a router myself? The Comcast guy I spoke to on the phone tried very hard to convince me that only a Comcast technician could do it.
4. Will having two computers connected to a router affect the connection speed?
5. Why can't I simply connect the older computer in the guest bedroom to cable the way the other computer is connected? I don't need a splitter or a router to connect the TV in the guest bedroom to cable, so why should I need a router to connect the computer in the guest bedroom? Could I possibly get another IP address and then connect by a cable modem? How would I go about doing that?
Any answers will be appreciated. Thanks.
I inherited the older computer. I set it up in our guest bedroom. Everything works fine except the internet connection. I have a cable modem for the guest bedroom, but it won't allow me to connect to the internet from there.
I called Comcast and did some preliminary searching online, and it appears that I'll need to get a router. That raises a few questions that I haven't been able to answer yet even though I have spent some time looking.
1. Do the computers have to be networked? It seems silly to network two computers.
2. After a router is installed, will both computers need to "connect" to the router by a wireless connection?
3. Shouldn't I be able to connect a router myself? The Comcast guy I spoke to on the phone tried very hard to convince me that only a Comcast technician could do it.
4. Will having two computers connected to a router affect the connection speed?
5. Why can't I simply connect the older computer in the guest bedroom to cable the way the other computer is connected? I don't need a splitter or a router to connect the TV in the guest bedroom to cable, so why should I need a router to connect the computer in the guest bedroom? Could I possibly get another IP address and then connect by a cable modem? How would I go about doing that?
Any answers will be appreciated. Thanks.
Comments
I am not super tech savy, so these are very generic poor answers... but I believe that a router is a better idea then 2 different modems. Just grab a router and only use wireless if running wires would be too big of a hassle. You can plug a few computers into a router, and the router plugs into your modem. I did not see a real drop in speed, but I don't normally download big things on both computers at the same time, but I immagion there will be a drop but I doubt it's going to be that significant for regular use.
Only in the sense that they will be connected to the same router. They don't need to be aware of each others existence at all.
2. After a router is installed, will both computers need to "connect" to the router by a wireless connection?
Yes, unless you buy some ethernet cables and connected them to the router physically. You can tell the computer to connect to a wireless connection at start up, avoiding having to do it manually every time it boots.
3. Shouldn't I be able to connect a router myself? The Comcast guy I spoke to on the phone tried very hard to convince me that only a Comcast technician could do it.
Yeah, you should. I connected mine by myself! There may always be some unforeseen issues I can't predict though.
4. Will having two computers connected to a router affect the connection speed?
No, usually most routers can do 10/100 Mbps. This is much faster than your connection is, probably. The only time you'll see a change in your speed is if both computers are using the connection at the same time and even then it will only be minor, unless both are doing some heavy downloading/uploading.
5. Why can't I simply connect the older computer in the guest bedroom to cable the way the other computer is connected? I don't need a splitter or a router to connect the TV in the guest bedroom to cable, so why should I need a router to connect the computer in the guest bedroom? Could I possibly get another IP address and then connect by a cable modem? How would I go about doing that?
Honestly, I have no idea.
Both computers connect to the router. The router (as pictured) will have several spots to hook up CAT5 cables to run to computers.
From there, setting up Internet access to both computers is a matter of changing your TCP/IP settings.
If you want to hook up one of the computers wirelessly (you must have either a modern laptop or a tower with a wireless card), you can do it this way:
Just think of the router as a hard-core cable splitter.
The latter is an incredibly silly situation. The former won't help you.
Where did you get this second cable modem? Did they provide it? Cable TV is just broadcast. The signal is on every part of the wire, and all your cable box does is read it. You can split that signal as much as you want.
Internet connections are not like that. What you seem to want to do is the wrong way to go about this, and will very likely not work. Just buy a router, connect it to your single cable MODEM, and then connect both PCs to it. Any other solution is incorrect.
As for where I got it, I honestly don't know. I found it when I was looking for a router among my collection of old, unused electronic stuff. I was pretty sure I had a router, but I found this modem instead.
Why do you ask? Am I not allowed to have it?
1. Do the computers have to be networked? It seems silly to network two computers.
They don't have to. Networking computers (where they know about each other) is optional, if you network the computers you will be able to move data between the two computers without the hassle of plugin in a usb stick and using that as transfer. Personally I don't and wouldn't bother with networking them.
2. After a router is installed, will both computers need to "connect" to the router by a wireless connection?
As has been told you can use wires, downside of wires is that either they lie on the floor and prevent doors from closing, or you need to drill holes in your walls and pull them through there. Downside of wireless is that the connection is less reliable and you can sometimes not get on the internet if you are very unlucky.
3. Shouldn't I be able to connect a router myself? The Comcast guy I spoke to on the phone tried very hard to convince me that only a Comcast technician could do it.
Guess why he was trying to convince you. Driving costs, installation costs, router costs, hourly costs. They make a nice buck of installing routers in people's houses. It's very easy to install a router once you have done it once.
4. Will having two computers connected to a router affect the connection speed?
You will still have the same download and upload speed as you always had, now however two computers will be using it at the same moment when both run, so if one computer is downloading a lot of data, the other computer will have less bandwidth for it's activities. This is a big problem if you have idiots/bastards as housemates who refuse to turn down their torrent limits and thus suck up all of the house's bandwidth. At least I've gotten my little brother to set those limits to half of our max upload (download I don't care about, it's 2mB/s tops, and even Steam doesn't get that high.
5. Why can't I simply connect the older computer in the guest bedroom to cable the way the other computer is connected? I don't need a splitter or a router to connect the TV in the guest bedroom to cable, so why should I need a router to connect the computer in the guest bedroom? Could I possibly get another IP address and then connect by a cable modem? How would I go about doing that?
As Rym said, TV is broadcast. When you change the channel on your TV all you are doing is telling the TV to display the information it is getting on another frequency on the same cable. In other words, your TV is receiving every channel at all times, whether you are watching it or not. So you can just plug a TV in a cable box in you house, and it will receive all the channels too. This is not the case with cable internet. You need to request data, and thus be able to be addressed via an IP address. Your idea of getting a second modem, and thus having to get a second subscription so that you have a second IP address for the second computer, is very silly, and costs a lot, if it works at all. And you would not be able to connect a third computer/laptop to the internet. This is why there are routers, these just take your one subscription and allow multiple computers and laptops to use it to connect to the internet.
I hope all of this makes sense and clears up some more information. If not, then it is again proven that I suck at explaining most things. You are allowed to have it. My guess is that it is the modem of your previous internet connection. Probably from your previous house, no?
Other than that, I really found your comment to be enlightening. I can see now why the internet connection wouldn't be the same as the TV connection. I was very suspicious of the Comcast guy when he said that they were different and then couldn't tell me why. Probably. We moved a couple of times in the last few years and it was probably jetsam that came along for the ride. I wish I knew where that router was, though. I just know I have a router somewhere . . .
I had the router because I needed it when I had my office in Louisville. Three of us shared space and there were five computers that were using the same broadband connection. I had a tech guy come to set it up. That's the reason I am a little cautious about trying to set one up myself. He took nearly an entire day to get it correctly configured.
EDIT:Setting it up can indeed be a bit of a hassle, the router we have here took quite some time (over a long period) to set up to the point it is now. However, setting up the basics with minimum security is not that hard, and should not take an entire day really. Hopefully you can find it and get it set up.
If you do find the router you are looking for, and it does not support wireless, I would recommend just getting a new one. Setup the working cable modem in the spare room with your computer, and hook it up to the wireless router. The old computer can sit there on a wired connection, and your laptop will have the freedom to roam around the house.
Remember to be a good citizen in your community and leave encryption off so that others can leech your internet when they drive by
Wire -----> Cable modem ----> Router -----> stick it in a closet and go play online.
As for comcast having to add it on their end, afaik, all they have to do is send a reset signal to the router. That's what I was told by a local tech anyway.
The guest room laptop is a Compaq 2200 that I bought in 2005. It has wireless capability and I used it exclusively with a wireless connection for the first year I owned it. I can connect to an unsecured wireless signal from the guest bedroom, but the signal strength is low. Would a wireless router improve that signal strength? Would it be possible to get a wireless router for that computer and leave the entire setup of Carole's alone, that is, could I simply get a wireless router for the guest room computer and pick up wireless signals in range? If I did this, would I have to change the TCP/IP address? Would I have to change the TCP/IP address in Jason's setup depicted here?
You don't want a tech coming around and poking at stuff. They really overcharge you, and do simple things that you could accomplish alone. Believe me, I am that tech.