Networking Woes

[Lord Pounder]

I need help.

I recently decided to build a new PC for my bedroom. Mostly so i could play my MMORPG till the wee hours but also to stop my other family bitching about me hogging my computer downstairs.

I've build a sweet machine, it's an Athlon 2400XP, 1024Mb of memory and generaly i nice way to blow 400 quid.

When i had a network some years ago i had ot set up in a configuration where my broadband pluged into the computer downstairs and shared it with upstairs via hub. Unfortunatley this was not ideal because it didn't split the bandwidth evenly causing my sister and I to try killing each other on a daily basis.

So this time to avoid bitching and moaning i tried to set up a Star Configuration. Whereby the Broadband plugs into the network hub and the 2 computers plug in with it.

Seems simple? Downstairs it's accepting the configuration, hence me being here posting this, but upstairs won't play ball. It'll see files shared on the network but it won't access the net. I'm stumped, can anyone offer advice?

[Shadowhawk]

Are you using a router, a switch, or a hub?
To share broadband, you really want to use a router.
Your broadband is probably restricted to a single MAC (hardware) address, which is your downstairs computer--your upstairs computer uses a different MAC that your broadband provider blocks/ignores.
A decent router will let you put your downstairs MAC on it, so your provider thinks your router is your computer. Then the router handles everything else.

[Lord Pounder]

Sweet. Thanks very much for the advice. I was using a hub, but i'm gonna dump it in order to get a wireless router now.