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phongn wrote:Buy a cheap router with a built-in switch. Plug your two computers into it. Plug your DSL modem into your router's WAN port. It might just work out-of-the-box that way.

So that way a router basically does work like a signal splitter, right?

In effect it acts to permit multiple devices to share the DSL line but being the pendatic technical guy I am, I refuse to call it a signal splitter

Are there any particular brands or models you (or anyone else) recommend?

Cheap and reliable is perhaps most desired.

Oh, and here's an image of the little Device of Joy:



It's a Netopia brand modem, which was provided by EarthLink.

Well, I'd reccommend a Cisco PIX 501 but that's not cheap

You can probably pick up a cheap Netgear, DLink or Linksys router, see whatever is cheap at the moment.

Oh jeez, yeah about $500 is a bit too expensive...

I think we'll be going with the second option of cheaper brands.

Using a PIX (even the 501) for your 2-computer home network is like using a bazooka to get rid of a mouse in your house .... the Netgear/Linksys route will be fine for your needs.

(Besides, a WatchGuard SOHO would be vastly preferable to that damned Cisco ..... )

Chmee wrote:Using a PIX (even the 501) for your 2-computer home network is like using a bazooka to get rid of a mouse in your house .... the Netgear/Linksys route will be fine for your needs.

(Besides, a WatchGuard SOHO would be vastly preferable to that damned Cisco ..... )

Whats special about that PIX?

Chmee wrote:Using a PIX (even the 501) for your 2-computer home network is like using a bazooka to get rid of a mouse in your house .... the Netgear/Linksys route will be fine for your needs.

(Besides, a WatchGuard SOHO would be vastly preferable to that damned Cisco ..... )

Yeah, I've already decided that a Linksys BEFSR41 might work well at $50 (currently $40 with rebate on Amazon).

I recently ordered one of these. My friend has one at his house and it works great.

Spaky, that is a KICK ASS console collection.

That's actually my console setup, complete with hand-assembled shoe rack/console shelf. Spanky didn't include the SNES or PS2 in that shot (on top of the table on either side of the TV).

It's kind of a mess right now; had to move the table out of the room and back w/o much rearranging of the cables.

Loner wrote:I recently ordered one of these. My friend has one at his house and it works great.

Blegh. Those 108mbps routers run way out of spec and cause massive interference thanks to bonding two channels. No thanks. I personally like the Linksys WRT54G due to the presence of third-party firmware. But if you don't need wireless neither of those are neccessary.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Yeah, I've already decided that a Linksys BEFSR41 might work well at $50 (currently $40 with rebate on Amazon).

That should be fine.

Ace Pace wrote:Whats special about that PIX?

It is capable of operating as a VPN endpoint efficiently, is better built and has far better support (though expensive support). It can probably handle a much greater load than most home routers as well. Finally, its firewall is much better.

Chmee wrote:Using a PIX (even the 501) for your 2-computer home network is like using a bazooka to get rid of a mouse in your house .... the Netgear/Linksys route will be fine for your needs.

Some dude on Ars is using a 2611 for his house

phongn wrote:

Ace Pace wrote:Whats special about that PIX?

It is capable of operating as a VPN endpoint efficiently, is better built and has far better support (though expensive support). It can probably handle a much greater load than most home routers as well. Finally, its firewall is much better.

Basically you're paying for corporate vpn/firewall features that you'll never use in a home networking environment. Far superior firewalling, I agree, but just not worth the extra dollars ... a 2-pc gaming network is very unlikely to strain the packet-filter throughput capacity of a Linksys nat-box.

phongn wrote:

Chmee wrote:Using a PIX (even the 501) for your 2-computer home network is like using a bazooka to get rid of a mouse in your house .... the Netgear/Linksys route will be fine for your needs.

Some dude on Ars is using a 2611 for his house

lol, that's me half the time, since I train corporate partners on configuring firewalls I'm usually protecting my 3-pc home network with a firewall 'borrowed' from my training lab that's meant for a 500-2,000 pc network. Strangely, I find very little use for multi-WAN, QoS, or server load balancing on my home network ... but the VPN features are nice, I usually connect to the Internet from the office by routing through a VPN tunnel to my firewall at home (as I'm doing now) -- anonymizer & 3DES encryption all at once!

Okay I just purchased that Linksys BEFSR41 from Amazon. It's technically two more ports than we need, but it's always good to have options since you never know what'll happen in the future.

Chmee wrote:Basically you're paying for corporate vpn/firewall features that you'll never use in a home networking environment. Far superior firewalling, I agree, but just not worth the extra dollars ... a 2-pc gaming network is very unlikely to strain the packet-filter throughput capacity of a Linksys nat-box.

Absolutely -- I was just being silly

lol, that's me half the time, since I train corporate partners on configuring firewalls I'm usually protecting my 3-pc home network with a firewall 'borrowed' from my training lab that's meant for a 500-2,000 pc network. Strangely, I find very little use for multi-WAN, QoS, or server load balancing on my home network ... but the VPN features are nice, I usually connect to the Internet from the office by routing through a VPN tunnel to my firewall at home (as I'm doing now) -- anonymizer & 3DES encryption all at once!

QoS can be useful if you have VoIP and want to ensure that the SIP packets have priority. My WRT54G with custom firmware can do QoS and PPTP VPN, though

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:

phongn wrote:Buy a cheap router with a built-in switch. Plug your two computers into it. Plug your DSL modem into your router's WAN port. It might just work out-of-the-box that way.

So that way a router basically does work like a signal splitter, right?

No, a HUB does the work of a signal splitter.

A router is more intelligent, analyzes all the traffic and filters out garbage, has a built in firewall and lets you configure port forwarding (so you can set all traffic over a certain port, for, say, a game, to go to the gaming computer- with a hub, it wouldn't know which computer to send it to and some games won't work).

Holy fucking shit, Batman, talk about a thread necromancy!

Just an update on our status. The router arrived yesterday morning, and after a slight bit of hair pulling, we got it working with Uts' computer. Sadly, despite trying multiple times, we couldn't get it to work with my computer, so we mostly gave up and decided to try again the next day.

After lazying about for much of the day, It seems Uts was working on it while I was napping/catching up to a sleepless night. I go downstairs to read through some newspapers for about fifteen minutes, and Uts appears with a smug expression and announces that he got it to work with both computers.

My brother is a God damn fucking genius.

How hard could it possibly be? I have the exact same router as you.


Cable/DSL modem>input on router> 2 cables in seprerate ports to the computers>configure ip settings on each computer>surf.


Have you gotten the latest firmware upgrade? (If your on 1.03<) you have a major security leak.

Get it here

I'm not the Bull-El's otherworldly-majestic prophet for nothing.

I'm going to celebrate by playing some World of Warcraft.

Laird wrote:How hard could it possibly be? I have the exact same router as you.


Cable/DSL modem>input on router> 2 cables in seprerate ports to the computers>configure ip settings on each computer>surf.


Have you gotten the latest firmware upgrade? (If your on 1.03<) you have a major security leak.

Get it here

It don't matter cuz now it works, so shut your pipe.

I use my router as a glorified switch- I have my server perform the other functions it would otherwise do (since I need to connect wirelessly to another gateway, and I like having DNS set up so I can ssh to various computers by hostname, which requires the server to know which IP address is assigned to which computer- server is set up to assign hostnames (and associated IP addresses) to MAC addresses).

It was giving us some annoying and unexplainable issues, most of which I shall blame on Spanky and his Win ME machine.
First it actually worked on his comp when first set up, but then it wouldn't allow mine to connect. So then we disconnected his and configured mine to use it via the setup disk. That ended up preventing his from connecting once we connected his back, even after shutting everything down and connection just his to the router. I had to disconnect and redo the whole modem/router setup and go through the setup wizard on his PC the third time, finally working only after resetting the router and fiddling with its power connection a few times.

It wasn't very intuitive or consistent, but I guess that's how most of the problems I deal with on Windows machines are. At least on XP Pro I have access to it; ME just sort of hides most of its settings and doesn't let me do much with it.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:

Laird wrote:How hard could it possibly be? I have the exact same router as you.


Cable/DSL modem>input on router> 2 cables in seprerate ports to the computers>configure ip settings on each computer>surf.


Have you gotten the latest firmware upgrade? (If your on 1.03<) you have a major security leak.

Get it here

It don't matter cuz now it works, so shut your pipe.

Maybe, but you really should get the firmware upgrade installed upto 1.05.

How do I check to see what version we already have?

All you have to do is login into the router, it should say it in the upper left hand corner of your browser in white text.