Can you run two PC's from one network outlet

Ben,

I've PM'd you.

Cheers
Glenn

I heard you can use two pairs of wire within a single cat5e cable but only over very short distances reliably, the crosstalk being excessive.

I have a few areas in my school where I do this because of a shortage of network outlets, and I've never had any noteable problems. A normal 100mbs connection over cat5 cable uses only the Orange and Green pairs in the cable, which means if you wire the plugs cleverly, you can get another entirely seperate connection utilising the Blue and Brown pairs in the cable.

It's not ideal, but it does work. I've made up my own 'two into one' patch leads to use for the few connections I have where I've done this, they look neat and work fine, however I wouldn't recommend using them if at all possible. (although it's marginaly better than using local switches in my opinion.)

I've also done a similar thing for telephones where we only have one available network point for a telephone and PC, as a normal phone only requires a single pair of wires, usually the blue pair. I do get ocassional problems with these, as the telephones seem to create more interference along the cable, so the switch sometimes throws up errors on the data. Again, this is only where there was no alturnative.

Mike.

Would I be able to use the 5-Port hub that I've found with a crossover cable?

I have a 24 port switch sat on my desk for the exact job. works a treat

yea the hub will work with a crossover.... not the best option though....

Im sure you can get a 4 port switch for around £20, but for a inbetween the hub will work

We have one of these 5 port hubs. Be careful that sometimes the ports are mutually exclusive, ie that it will work as a hub on all five ports but if you want it to uplink to the cat5 point on the wall you may have to use the uplink port but leave port 1 0r 5 blank/empty. The ports are often marked with a bracket symbol linking them. If its an old hub you may well need the crossove cable mentioned earlier rather than a straight one
Neilenormal

Recently I purchased a couple of D-Link 5 Port 10/100 Unmanaged Ethernet Switchs from Misco http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/...063&CatId=2733 £6.99 each Plus VAT and Carriage. They work a treat.

I also use a cheap D-Link 5 port switch - fine: and I can use 4 m/cs on the 1 skt.
But before I got this I used a spare NW card to add a second card to the existing machine. Bridge the two cards and link the second machine with a Xover cable. It worked.