basic laptop connection

[echineko]

alright, this is going to sound idiotic, but how do you connect a laptop to a desktop? i never owned one before, still dont, so i never needed to know this.

the cable i have is correct i believe, as it was provided with the laptop, a cat-5 i think its called. i know that xp is supposed to auto detect when an external device is plugged in, but for laptops do i need to have a network card installed(i dont have one). other than that, the laptop is a recent toshiba, so there shouldnt be any problems with datedness, and my pc is a fairly stable xp service pack 2 machine(i say fairly because i believe that no xp machine is ever truely stable).

[Mad_Bishop]

you need a crossover cable. This probably isn't the one you have. It's the same size, but wired backwards. Set your IP as 192.168.1.40 on one machine and 192.168.1.50 on the other. Make sure you have administrator privilages, and enable sharing of folders. Pretty easy.

more detailed instructions are here (http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:t-yyDK4Y9UYJ:www.cellarstoneindia.com/cable_pdf/LanCrossOverCableConnection%2520(95-98-MeToXP).pdf+crossover+lan+xp&hl=en&client=firefox-a")

[monster]

I'm having similar problems.

Bought a new desktop with XP last week. Set it up and ran the cable internet through the router. No problems there.

Went to set up the noteboook adapter card on my laptop, but there seems to be a conflict with the previous card (I am upgrading my netwrok from B to G). I now have Linksys stuff while I used to have a netgear wireless B card that I only used to share the Internet. I want to set up file sharing now too. The old card didn't work either. Apparently, I need to go into safe mode and remove drivers, etc.

So I figured I would ridge the gap by just using a CAT 5 wire and hooking my laptop into the router to get connected to the desktop. I got nothing. When I go into the LAN settings on my laptop it says it's part of a network bridge. I have no clue what is going on. I followed all instructions I had to the letter and have jackshit to show for it.

[nsa]

you need a crossover cable. ...
Alternatively, buy a multi-port hub for about $20.

It is also possible to link up through the parallel port. Special cable there, too.

[techin]

I've found USB crossover cables easier to work with than cat5 crossovers. But I didn't entirely know what I was doing for the latter one when I tried it. With USB crossovers, there's usually a driver CD and instructions at least.

[yimmy]

If you want to see if your cat-5 cable is a crossover or not, just hold one end up in the air with the plastic lock tab facing away from you. Starting from the left, the first two wires are for the Tx. The third and sixth wires are for the Rx. The other four wires aren't used (for fast ethernet anyway)

Now look at the other end of the cable and hold it the same way in front of you and see if the colors of the first two wires are the same color as the first two wires on the other end. If they're different then it's a crossover, if they're the same, then it's a straight-through.