Dumb but Smart

[Anriana]

Had a customer who was connecting a PC and an Xbox through a router. He got the Xbox online but not the PC, so he decided to connect his PC to the modem with USB! After five minutes of trying to explain why that wouldn't work, he said he would just direct connect with the modem and alternate between the two devices, since he was using his TV screen as a monitor for his computer! How do you learn how to do that without knowing the basics of modems/routers?

[LostMyMind]

Most video cards now days come with an s-video output and even an hdmi output. So it's not that hard to use a TV as an computer monitor now days.

But still, if the xbox connected with no problems. The PC should have too. Unless the cable he used for the PC was bad. But yeah, connecting to the USB port of the modem is an odd jump.

[Salesmonkey]

I'm confused as to why this wouldn't work. My cable modem has both USB and aethernet ports. The xbox likes the former, and the pc can be hooked up on the latter. As long as your customer didn't try to use both at once, what would be the problem?

[Fenrus]

Sales, I think what the OP was saying is that ater unsuccessfully trying 2 ethernet cables, he tried to use both the ethernet and usb cables.

[earl colby pottinger]

Limits

Also I know I had problems trying to do this to a cable modem.

Either port would work by itself, but not both at the same time - one can understand why a programmer would consider supporting only one port at a time to max speed and to separate the code.

More important, as long as the ethernet cable was active the USB did not come online on the modem I was testing. This would mean he *must* turn off the XBOX to use the computer on the internet i he had the same modem.

[Kilamon]

How do you learn how to do that without knowing the basics of modems/routers?

You would be surprised. No, wait. You wouldn't, or shouldn't be.

He may very well know how to connect using the cables he was supplied but those cables from his router company may be very different. A Cisco DSL modem I received years ago came with 3 "Ethernet" cables. These were clearly described in the manual. One was the usual Cisco light blue for the console port and required the rj45 to 9 pin serial adapter, the purple patch cable and a yellow crossover cable. If you didn't read the manual or look at the cables closely, you'd think they were the same. Additionally, because it was Cisco and this was before the 100baseT standard of auto-switching was implemented, you could not connect the router to a switch or hub without using the crossover cable. Come to think of it, since I never used the patch cable, I don't know why they had the purple one in there since you can't connect a PC to the router without it also being a crossover. Oh well.

If your user is unwittingly using the wrong cable, he won't get a link light. If your user's hub or switch has a shared port, where one of the hub/switch ports was physically capable of two connections but electrically only suited for one of them, then he will fail to get a link light. If your user is trying to utilize an ACTUAL ROUTER, then it will (usually) only have ONE ethernet port. The other port may be for console or uplink to the phone or cable company.

Next time you speak with him, ask for make/model numbers on the router. You can google it then and make an informed suggestion.