How to make an Ethernet connection between two computers?
Posted
September 29, 2008 
Comments(3)
Comments(3)
Charlie asked:
I have two windows XP computers and a 5-port workgroup hub, What steps do I take to make a connection. How do I find the IP address of each computer?
Open a command prompt.
Type in ipconfig /all and that will show you the IP address of the box.
They need to be on the same IP network, of course.
just plug each one into the hub. go to control panel/network connections and make sure you have a different ip address for each computer
From your description, I assume that you have no other equipment or network connections going on here. That means there is no DHCP server (like you’d find on a router) that assigns IP addresses for you.
No problem however. Just manually assign a unique IP address to each computer. There are some rules for assigning addresses, but to keep it simple for you just use any unique value in the following range:
192.168.0.xxx (where xxx is a number from 1 to 254).
Subnet mask is then 255.255.255.0
Gateway/Router is blank (or 0.0.0.0)
DNS is also blank (or 0.0.0.0)
Under XP, you can change the address by opening Network Connections in the control panel. Pull up properties on the Local Area Connection; find Internet Protocol in the list and hit properties.
If you ever want to do it automatically, just add a router or internet gateway with DHCP turned on and set each PC to get their addresses automatically.