Home Networking Basics, part 3

Configuring the PC's to Access the Router and the Internet

• Your first step is to configure a PC simply to talk to the router.
• Your router's manual will step you through this process. Generally, it will tell you to power down your cable modem, hook up the unpowered router to it, power down your computer, hook it to the unpowered router, and then start the cable modem. When the cable modem is up and finished configuring, you start the router. When it finishes its startup, then you turn on your computer. This sequence may also be required when you are making changes to your network hardware or moving computers from one router connection to another.
• Plug in a standard Ethernet cable (also known as a "patch cable") to your computer's Ethernet connection and then to one of the LAN connections on the router (the WAN is the Internet-side of the router, and goes to the cable or dsl modem).
• By default, the router is set to be a DHCP server and your computer is set to be a DHCP client. That is, the router will assign IP addresses for the local area network (LAN) and your computer by default will attempt to get its IP address and DNS information from the DHCP server to which it is connected.
• You can confirm that you have an IP address assigned to your computer by opening a command window (WinXP: Start/Run, type "cmd" (without the "") and hit the Enter key; Win98 and WinMe, type "command" instead of "cmd"). Then, type "ipconfig". The response will show you your IP address. Routers generally assign networks in the 192.168.1.x or 192.168.2.x series. If you get an address that is 0.0.0.0 or 69.x.x.x or something equally bizarre, you're probably not getting an IP address assigned -- the ethernet connections themselves have default addresses.
• However, the easiest way to check is simply to open the webbrowser and try to go somewhere. If it doesn't work, then figure out what's happened. Using your web browser, try to go to the router by just typing in the address 192.168.1.1. If that doesn't work, try 192.168.2.1. If that doesn't work, do the ipconfig thing (above) -- the router will be the number shown as "gateway."
• After you have one computer talking to the router and the Internet, then you can start setting up the other computers.

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