Network newbie

[Thenimrod]

I am trying to set up a network between 3 of my computers, but can't seem to get it done right. Before I had 2 of my pc's connected using a crossover cable, but since I am getting cable net next week, I bought a router to get my bro's pc on the net too, but as I said I can't seem to get it working right. His computer won't respond/detect the other pc's. So I just want to start from scratch and need instructions on how to do this. Heres the PC's:


PC 1: AMD Athlon XP 2800+/Win2k/1 gig ram
PC 2: AMD Duron 900 Mhz/WinXP/480 megs of ram
PC 3: AMD Duron 800 Mhz/Win2k/256 megs of ram

So what I need pretty much is a step by step on configuring the network on win2k and winxp. I have a dlink 704 router.

if your using the router, you will need to get rid of the cross over cable and use regular cat 5 cables between the router and the pcs

[Thenimrod]

Originally posted by GroundZero3
if your using the router, you will need to get rid of the cross over cable and use regular cat 5 cables between the router and the pcs

I have 3, one for each pc. I'm not THAT much of a newbie

do any of the computer get ip addresses?

go to start, run type cmd type ipconfig

do you have all the computers in the same workgroup?

[Thenimrod]

Yes. yes, yes.

you updated the router firmware? i assume all computers have internet too?

[Thenimrod]

Originally posted by GroundZero3
you updated the router firmware? i assume all computers have internet too?

Yes and no. I am just trying to set this up for file sharing for now.

[terinelf]

Are there any software firewalls installed on the computers. I ran into a situation where ZoneAlarm was installed on one PC, and the two computers that where being networked didn't see each other. Once I unistalled the firewall everything worked fine.