Is it possible to connect or network 2 computers that both have wifi and wired nic cards with crossover cable

March 28, 2008 10:12 AM

Is it possible to connect or network 2 computers that both have wifi and wired nic cards with crossover cable

I have 2 computers both have wifi cards that are used to connect to my access point. Both computers also have wired nic cards. I want to enable the wired nic cads and connect the 2 computers with a crossover cable but only to transfer files not to share an internet connection because as already stated both have independent wifi cards and separate ip address. Is this possible and how would I set this up.

posted by antisocialiting to computers & internet (16 comments total)

What operating system do you use?
posted by mr_roboto at 10:14 AM on March 28

Should be possible, yes.

The easiest way would be to give the two machines' wired network cards static IPs on the same subnet that is distinct from your WiFi network. So 10.1.1.1 and 10.1.1.2, for instance. Then use your OS's favorite form of file sharing to map drives/folders to each of the other machine.

With your OS info we can tell you exactly how to do this.
posted by Xoder at 10:14 AM on March 28

it xp sorry about that
posted by antisocialiting at 10:18 AM on March 28

if assign one nic 10.1.1.1 and the other 10.1.1.2 what should the sub net mask be and what is the primary dns server?
posted by antisocialiting at 10:52 AM on March 28

Um...you do know that you can transfer files over your wireless network, right? Turn on Windows file sharing, make sure both computers are on the same workgroup, and share away. Way less work.
posted by General Malaise at 11:14 AM on March 28

yes but the nic cards will be much faster thats why i want to do it that way
posted by antisocialiting at 11:48 AM on March 28

- Plug them in, and look for link lights to come on.
- Then, for each interface, give it a unique address that's close to the other. (If you have IPv6 turned on, you need not assign an address.)
- When you try to reach one from the other, be sure to use a name or address that ensures you're not going to speak to the other over the wifi network.

(Oh, and check your keyboard. Your punctuation keys aren't working either.)
posted by cmiller at 12:17 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

After you do what people above mention, either create a firewall exception, or turn off windows firewall.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 12:56 PM on March 28

The netmask should be either 255.0.0.0 or 255.255.255.0, either will work. You will not be using DNS over this connection, so you do not need to set one. Assuming you've already created the shared folders (AskMe has several dozen explanations of how to do that), you should be able to get to the other's shared folders by going to \\10.1.1.n\ in Windows Explorer, where n is the last number of the other machine.
posted by Xoder at 1:19 PM on March 28

yes but the nic cards will be much faster thats why i want to do it that way

Technically yes but it wont be if youve wasted 2 hours trying to get this to setup properly. Not to mention you need to explicity state to these machiens what interface to use if you have 2 working interfaces.

The easiest thing to do is to use the wireless connection,. The second easiest thing to do is to use disable wireless, use the crossover cable assign computers like so

computer 1:

ip 192.168.1.1
sn: 255.255.255.0
no dns no gateway (if you get an error for gateway then just use 192.168.1.100 or something)


computer 2

ip 192.168.1.2
sn: 255.255.255.0
no dns no gateway (if you get an error for gateway then just use 192.168.1.100 or something)

Enable sharing on computer one and on computer 2 type this into explorer \\192.168.1.1\shared (or whatever you called your share)

ta da! 100mbps all the way, but without a switch its half-duplex which will be a minor performance hit.
posted by damn dirty ape at 2:59 PM on March 28

damn dirty ape, while I agree that your solution is the simplest, it's unnecessary to disconnect the WiFi so long as you use a different one of the RFC 1918 reserved private networks. That's why I suggested the 10.0.0.0/8 because their router is almost certainly using 192.168.0.0/16.
posted by Xoder at 3:58 PM on March 28

For a one-off file transfer session, don't bother fartarsing around with static IP addresses. Just plug the computers together with the crossover cable. Windows will automatically assign each Ethernet port a random IP address in the 169.254.x.x range and tell you that the port has "limited connectivity".

Right-click the connection icon, choose Status, and select the Support tab: this will show you that connection's current IP address (say, 169.254.19.46). On the other computer, type \\169.254.19.46 into the address bar of an Explorer window, and you will be able to browse all of 169.254.19.46's shared folders and printers.
posted by flabdablet at 8:34 PM on March 28

I apologize but non of you suggestions worked
posted by antisocialiting at 12:28 PM on March 29

Did you actually try mine? Please note the part about disabling wireless. I imagine the issue is that you have set this up but did not disable the wireless interface so Windows tried to route to the new network and didnt know how to use the other interface. You can side-step this issue by using the route command but that is unnecessarily complex.

Generally, multihoming computers is not an easy thing to do and if youre asking basic networking questions then you might not have the skills to pull this off reliably. You also didnt give us any new information. Which suggestion did you try? Did you assign IPs? Were you at least able to ping the machines? Did you try taking down the local firewalls? etc etc
posted by damn dirty ape at 3:37 PM on March 29

At what point did the procedure I suggested fail to work as I said it would? It would be helpful to know that, because it's always worked fine for me before, and I'd like to know how to avoid steering other people wrong.

damn dirty apes's point about firewalls is a good one. If you're running third party firewalls, they will probably have different filtering rules for different interfaces, and might well allow file sharing via one without allowing it via another. This would mean that you'd be able to do your file transfers (slowly) via wireless, but not via cables.

If either of your computers has any firewall other than the Windows XP SP2 inbuilt one installed, turn it off. Then, visit Windows Firewall in the control panel, and either turn that off too, or make sure there's an exception in place that allows Windows file and printer sharing.

Next, make sure your machines can see each other's shared folders via the wireless connection, before you even plug in the crossover cable. That will ensure that at least you've got the sharing side of things set up properly, which is one less possibility for things to go wrong on the cable.

Once that's working, the next thing to do is disable wireless on both machines, then plug in the crossover cable and make sure both machines are doing the thing where they tell you about "limited connectivity". If they're not doing that - if, for example, they're still telling you that a cable is unplugged - then your crossover cable isn't a crossover cable.

If you have wireless turned off, and two machines plugged together with a crossover cable and both showing "limited connectivity" warnings, then they should be able to see and browse each other's shared folders without you doing anything even slightly network-technical.

With wireless turned on, you'd need to refer to the other machine using its cable interface's IP address, like \\169.254.48.77 rather than \\machine-name, to ensure that you were working over the cable.

Please let me know, at the point you've decided something's not working, (a) what you expected to see and (b) what you saw instead.
posted by flabdablet at 5:45 PM on March 29

to damn dirty ape thank but..... first off i don't want to disable the wireless i would just transfer the files that way it would be soooo much easier then going through some whole thing of turning off or disabling 2 nics every time I want to transfer files. really the best thing is just using the the new version of remote desktop.
I have no firewalls
they can connect through the wireless nics they can all see each other about 5 comps in all

the only thing I didn't do besides turn off the wireless was once searching for the shared folders use the actual unc name instead of the ip address/share. so maybe that was it but I'm done its not that important to me anymore. I don't even care at this point if there is a solution.

thanks for any help or input
posted by antisocialiting at 9:47 PM on March 29