Another Computer Question By Me

[Life on Other Planets AKA Johns]

I have my desktop which is connected to my modem, i also have a laptop which is not connected to the modem. If i want to connect my laptop to the modem to use the internet how do i do that?? I have tried just unplugging the modem for the desktop straight into the laptop but it does not work. What settings do i need to change and how do i do it on my laptop?? Also if i do change the settings and then want to plug the modem back into the desktop do i have to configure my desktop again?? Thanks for any help

[futura]

Re: Another Computer Question By Me

johns-
If it's anything like my cable-modem setup when you connect the cable modem to a device the modem has a direct pass-through to the ethernet device on your computer. My cable provider "remembers" the internal MAC (an internal, unique number on every ethernet device) address of the network card on your computer. If you try to move it to another computer, my cable provider won't let it authenticate.

I haven't done it in so long, but if you visit a special page at the cable provider, you can tell it to "forget" the MAC address, and then it will grab a new one (i.e. your laptop). At my cable provider, that special web page is hosted on their DNS servers. So if I knew the DNS IP addresses for my cable provider, if I use Internet Explorer/firefox, etc. to visit that page, that's the "control page".

That all said - I actually have an internal network router/switch hooked up to my cable modem. Thus, my cable provider is actually picking up the MAC address of my router/switch. The switch has wireless and hard-wired connections. I have a desktop hard-wired to the switch, and a laptop that uses the wifi. Since the switch/router is communicating with the cable provider, it doesn't matter what computers connect - the cable provider always thinks its the switch/router connecting - which it is.

If I'm not explaining this properly for you, let me know.

All that said - you should see if your ISP/provider has a self-service management web page or something that will allow you to tell them to "forget" the MAC address of your desktop. Then when you plug-in the laptop, it will grab that computer's MAC address. You'll have to subsequently "forget" the MAC address on any device you connect.

You may want to get a router/switch so that you can connect multiple devices up internally on your home network/LAN (the switch/router essentially gives you the ability to have a LAN) and the ISP/provider is none-the-wiser as everything is routed through the router/switch.

Hope that helps.

[Life on Other Planets AKA Johns]

Re: Another Computer Question By Me

I have to do what now ?? . Thanks for the info bro but to be honest with ya i am pretty dumb when it comes to things like this. I get the gist of what your saying but i guess all those terminologies is what has confused me ..for example DNS servers & router/switch .. but it is cool i will Google search them or wiki them .. Thanks bro