I'm trying to link two computers .... an older PC (XP, for addons, etc) and a shiny new laptop (WIn7, with flight sim installed). Both computers are in the basement (my mancave), where the wireless signal from the second floor is very low.

Since I have an old powered non-wireless router from years ago, I thought I'd use it to hardwire the two computers for a more efficient connection, and let the laptop use the wireless signal to gather weather information.

Networking the two works great; however, I lose the ability to connect to the internet. Unplug the router wires, and internet returns on the laptop.

Is it no possible to have my cake and eat it too? It shows me connected, with Internet access, but it wont load pages. I assume something is blocking it, firewall perhaps? Or maybe it's just not possible to do both wireless and wired at the same time.

Any suggestions as to what the blockage might be?

Thanks in advance.

Access the router and see if any ports are blocked. Do you have a firewall turned on? SOME of the older routers were an either/or situation - wired OR wireless but not both - What's the make & model# of your router? Google it and see if there's any info.

 

Vic

Thanks, Vic

It is a pretty old router. I have a newer one stashed somewhere, so I'll give it a try.

You can use a cross-over cable directly between the two pc's, jt, then give each one an address like 192.168.2.4 and 192.168.2.5, with a mask of 255.255.255.0. Just make sure the wireless ip is not the same as either of the wired ip's. Networking withXP is not too difficult, but Win7 doesn't like other machines accessing it's filesystem.