Networking 2 comps. 1st Time!!

Hi everyone,
My first time trying to network 2 comps at home.
Here’s the case:
2 NETGEAR FA310TX NIC cards and an 4 port EN104TP Ethernet Hub.
Both comps are on WIN 98SE.
I checked the drivers in device manager and both NIC Cards are installed fine.

Right click>Network Neighborhood>properties>configuration tab,
“Primary Network Logon” is set to “Microsoft Family Logon”
“Checked” both options in “File and Print Sharing”

Under “Identification” Tab,
Computer name is a family member's name,
The Workgroup is “WORKGROUP” and yea, both computers have it spelled the same.
“computer description” is just blank.


Ok, so now I double-click on “Network Neighborhood>Entire Network>Workgroup>then, there is only one computer there, it’s the local or the computer I’m using. That’s the only one in there. I disconnected the Hub to my comp and it the same thing, even after restarting the comp, just my comp. So do you think the hub is bad? I just bought that thing.

Oh, I tried Start>run>\\(comp name) and it could not find it.


Do I have a bad HUB or am I missing to configure something?
Oh, all the lights on the hardware (NICs, HUB) turn on.

Any suggestion or advise would be appreciated.

Thanks guys!!!

Share some folders on each machine and try again. If this doesn't work then we'll continue.

Right click on network neighborhood to bring up network properties, double click 'NETGEAR etc etc fast ethernet adaptor'. Click the advanced tab. Check that link speed/ duplex mode is set to '10 Half' (If it works now, you have a 10base hub). Try setting this to '100 half' and if it works then the problem was the cards running at full duplex.

Go to control panel -> network. If there is already a Protocol : "TCP/IP - fast ethernet adaptor" there, double click it.
Set the IP address on the machine to manual and enter "10.0.0.1" and "255.255.255.0" as the subnet mask.
On the other machine do the same except entering "10.0.0.2" for its IP address.

Open a dos box on each computer and type "PING 127.0.0.1" (without quotes), if you get a response then your TCP/IP stack is installed.

If TCP/IP isn't listed on the network properties, click 'Add' then 'protocol', then 'microsoft', 'TCP/IP'. Follow the config steps above to set it up.

How about adding a service "Client for Microsoft Networks" on both machines?

Thanks cordon!!!

I got it to work!! I didn’t know I had to do that with the IP. My Hub is a 10Mbps. Thanks for taking some time to help me. I appreciated it.

Lowland, I didn’t understand what you wanted me to do.

I just ran into another dilemma. See, I’m on a cable modem and when I manually input the IP address, My Internet doesn’t work. The cable modem is defaulted to DHCP. So I manually put the IP address and reinstalled the Cable software. During installation, I got an IP Error. It a just asked me to put in the “Default Gateway”. Do I just call cust. Service and get the default gateway or is there a way to get the default gateway # while on DHCP and the change it to manual IP and put in the default gateway?

Can you guys give any recommendations?

Thanks again for all your help!! Much appreciated.