Win 95 Network Setup (Part 1)
Adding your new hardware correctly is the important part.
Network cards have come down a lot in price and now come in various specifications and flavours etc. Some are PCI and others are ISA. If you are only going to run two PC's networked ie. peer to peer, ISA are fine as there will be no great benefit in having super fast PCI cards when there is no one else adding to the traffic. Some cards come with only RJ-45 twisted pair connector (similar in looks to the phone cable in your modem) while others have a composite of both RJ-45 and 10BASE-T to accept coaxial cable.

To setup 2 PC's in a home/family peer to peer Lan you will need.

Coaxial cable with T-Connector and terminator.

Network Adapter
ISA composite RJ-45/BNC connector card (NE 2000 jumperless).

Now that you have got your cards, cable and T-Connectors and terminators, you can fit the cards to each machine. Follow the guide lines in the handbook which came with the cards. The cards I have are 'NE2000 Compatable' and come with a diskette which has a diagnostic and setup utility that runs from a dos prompt. From the diagnostics you will need to write down the i/o and irq numbers - you will need to refer to these later. The beauty of jumperless cards is that you can change i/o and irq settings without taking your PC apart. The diagnostic/setup diskette that comes with jumperlesse cards will let you change these settings interactively and even tell you if a setting you choose is in use by another device.

Now you will need to tell Windows you have new hardware. If you haven't done so already. From the start button, select settings, control panel then "add new hardware". This procedure should be explained in the Lan card hand book.
Once this has been done, you will probably be prompted by Windows to restart your computer. Once you are satisfied this is done successfully, got control panel and have a look at the settings under "system". Click the tab "device manager". Hopefully there should be a icon for network adapter. Preferrably without a big red cross though it !!!!. If there is a big red cross through it, the card conflicts with another adapter. This is where the magic of jumperless cards comes in. Double click the icon of the listed adapter. Click the resources tab. The interupt requset (IRQ) and input/output (I/O) range can be changed to something that does not conflict if needed. If it is required, write down the new values and reflect these settings in the card with the setup/diagnostic disk you got with your card - in DOS mode. Now we need to tell Win 95 about our network once the hardware has been recognised by Windows.

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