How To Connect Two Computers Using LAN Cable

If you have two computers and you want that each computer can communicate to another for data sharing, printer sharing, internet sharing, Intranet Application, 2 players game, etc, you can do using UTP / LAN Cable if in each computer has an ethernet card (LAN / NIC Card)

Computer to computer connection

At the moment, almost every computer has an Ethernet Card (NIC Card / LAN card).

Ethernet on Desktop PC

Laptop Ethernet port

To connect a computer to another directly through Ethernet/LAN Card, we need a LAN Cable (UTP Cable) with Cross-over configuration.

To Built a Cross-over LAN Cable, see the post Cross-over UTP Configuration

After you have a cross-over LAN cable, connect each connector of the LAN Cable to the computer.

Computer A Computer B

Setting The IP Address

To be able to communicate between two computers, we need to set the TCP/IP in each computer.

The figure samples below are For Ms Windows (Windows 7)

• Go to right down side of your windows, click the network logo, then click Open Network and Sharing Center

• Click Local area Connection

• Click Properties

• Choose Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)

• Click Properties

• Choose Use the following IP address

• Set / write the IP address, for example: 192.168.0.1

and subnet mask : 255.255.255.0

• Click OK

Ip address for Computer A

Do the same procedure for computer B, but use different IP address, for example 192.168.0.2

IP Address for Computer B

To check the connection, we can use ping command,

Before doing the ping command, turn off the Windows Firewall first in both of computers (go to Control Panel--> Windows Firewall--> Turn off Windows Firewall)

To do the Ping Command :

• Go to Command Prompt (press Windows logo + R , then write CMD , then hit Enter)

• After Command prompt appear ( in computer A) write the ping command :

ping 192.168.0.2 then press Enter key

there must be reply from Computer B (192.168.0.2)