arhyalon

I think I know what's going on with your modem and your ISP. If you can send me the model number of the Netgear device, I'll see if that can be updated to fix the problem.

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As you may see above, the problem is "no router". I got suspicious when the Netgear "router" looked just like the Netgear splitter I just bought.

Sigh...in my defense, it's been ten years since I've seen a router. I thought maybe they had changed.

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In the time it took me read the previous, walk upstairs, and sit down to tell you that your problem was because you only get one IP address, the old computer had snagged it, and you need a router to share that with multiple computers, you had already figured it out!

There should be a group of ethernet ports on the hub, and one off to the side by itself. The solo one is for the cable modem to be plugged into, and the grouped set of ports is for you to plug your computers into. You'll need three ethernet cables.

Also, I think it's a good idea to put a good antivirus and firewall on the work computer, in case something gets on the kids computer that can propagate through the network. AVG Free used to be the best antivirus (and free as in beer) I'd used, but I haven't used a windows machine in years and years, so things may have changed. And Zone Alarm had a free firewall program, but I think there's one in Windows now that you just need to turn on.

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Yeah...thanks, though! In my defense, the person who gave it to me called it a router. I think his roommate had the router and he never realized there was another piece of equipment involved.

On the good side, I'm all ready when we get our second computer and our new WII (First game system ever in the Wright Household coming for Christmas)...I now have two Netgear splitter boxes...one with 8 slots and one with 16 slots. ;-) Theoretically, that means that once I get a router, I can run 24 computers, LOL.

I have Norton upstairs (work computer). I haven't decided what to do with the downstairs computer yet. Someone told me that the Norton license may cover more than one computer. I'll check that before I buy something new...but thanks for the suggestions. I wonder if the ones you mention might be better than what I have. Those Chinese sites keep beatting the tar out of our little computer.

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On the anti-virus side, I can say that we've had pretty good results with Microsoft's Security Essentials. It's free for home use (we run the paid version on about 200+ computers at work). That combined with Malware Bytes has covered us pretty well.

Hope you enjoy the WII! We have one and our 3 year old is the best boxer in the house! :)

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I don't really know, it's been years since I've run a Windows machine. But if you're wanting to put your Wii online, you'll need either a wireless router, or a Wii USB to LAN adapter.

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We'll see how that works. Getting the Wii online is secondary...but we'd like to do it eventually.

We did get a wireless/wire router, so that might work, too.

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