PC/Mac Crossover Ethernet Connection

[Charles Hansell]

I am new to this list and need help. I am not sure if this is appropriate for this forum and apologize if I should not be looking for help here!

I am a 20 yr. MAC person (non techie) and I just broke down and bought a HP notebook; Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz, 512 MB, 60 GB drive, DVD-CD-RW, running Windows XP Home. For days I have been trying to connect my iMac and HP using a Cat 5 Crossover connection. My iMac is a G3, 350 MHz, 64 MB, 6 GB drive, CD ROM, running OS 9.04. I have done this type of connection with two iMac's and an iMac and a Performa 6116CD (running OS 7.5) without a problem.

I believe I am making a valid hardware connection. I cannot get either computer to be recognized by the other and mounted on the desktop!

I called the HP tech support line only to be informed that they do not support networking as part of their service for a new machine. My Apple support has expired. Given my experience doing this before I thought it would be relatively easy (: (:

Any thoughts or help would be appreciated.

Charles
Tutoraaa@aol.com

[Lance Brown]

Make sure that both systems have an IP address on the same network. On XP you can go and into the connections settings and have it show you if the link is connected. I don???t know about OS 9.X, but OS X does support MS networking, OS 9.x may not.

I would have bought one of Apples new PowerBooks instead of the HP. The hardware is better so is the OS.

[Roger Faucher]

Charles:

Do you know the IP addresses of each machine? Open a Command Prompt window on the XP machine and type PING nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn (where nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn is the MACs IP address). Both machines must be in the same subnet (first three 'nnn' must be identical).

I'm not totally convinced you'll be able to do anything even if you succeed in networking the two machines. The only way I've been able to make MACs and PCs inter-operate is with an intervening WINNT/WIN2K server, but that was before MAC OS X.

Good luck!

Roger

[Roger Faucher]

Charles:

If both machines have Firewire (IEEE 1394) that may be the best way to network them. See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2734.txt?number=2734

Roger

[Roger Faucher]

Charles:

Check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305989

Roger

[Ron Kinner]

Two MACs together would presumably speak appletalk to each other which requires no setup. Window boxes can normally only speak to MACs with TCP/IP which requires that you assign an IP address and mask to both devices. (say 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 with a mask of 255.255.255.0. You won't need a default gateway so leave it blank.) Even then they are normally not going to want to share files or whatever unless one of them runs an FTP server. That said there are software emulations that can help. See

http://www.macwindows.com/

Ron

[Lance Brown]

If OSX is used, then you do not need any third-party software. You use a browser / and you have access t the MAC.

[Lance Brown]

One more step, you need to tell OSX that you want to connect to a windows network.

[Mark de Leon]

You CAN share files you CAN share Internet. First things first though. Lets FORCE both NICs to the lowest common denominator. What often happens with a crossover cable is that it can have a bad conductor, or one NIC is not going to properly auto negotiate the connection speed. Therefore it is best when troubleshooting to force BOTH nics into 10Mbps Half duplex mode. In windows this is easy from Network connections go to the name of the NIC and properties. One tab will show Link speed more than likely. There should also be a selection for full or half duplex. Put it in half. I have never done this on a MAC, but lets assume there is a way. If not you will have to run the PC through the different modes. and PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO WHICH MACHINE IS TURNED ON FIRST! Many times I have found it easier to purchase a hub than go through these headaches.

Next If you use your PC for connection to tthe internet, and want to use ICS, just give your MAC a startic IP in the range of 192.168.0.5 with subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 .

With third party software, www.thursby.com for "DAVE" or Miramarsystems.com for PC Mac LAN you CAN share files over a network.

I would be happy to correspond by email if you need further help

datovoz@softhome.net