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Can I connect both an Airport Express and an ethernet wire to a router?

S

Snookerman

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 6, 2008
391
9
I have a modem (Tilgin Vood 342) that came from the phone company which I use to connect my old desktop PC and my new MacBook Pro to the internet, through two separate ethernet cables. The modem has three ethernet ports and connects to the internet through an ethernet port in the wall.

I want to buy an Airport Express in order to get wireless internet to my MacBook, but since my desktop PC can't receive wireless internet, I still need it to be plugged into the modem through a cable (I don't mind that). So my question is, can I use one of the modem ports for the Airport Express and another for the ethernet cable without there being a conflict?

I'm asking because I went to an electronics store and I was told that there might be a conflict and that I should buy an Airport Extreme or another router with ports in order for it to work. I would really prefer the Express because it's :apple: and it's the most I can pay for. Thanks for your help!
 
It will work, It looks like your modem is a router too (which is a good thing, since you never want to just connect straight to a plain modem, for security reasons).
If it was just a modem, then the electronics store was more than likely correct.

Just set the express to create a wireless network, and then under internet -> connection sharing, put it in "off (bridge mode)", anything on the wireless network will behave just like it's on the wired network.
 
Ok, thanks! I guess I got the terms mixed up. I thought modems split the connection and routers transmit it wirelessly, but I guess modems transform it (which I don't need) and routers split it. I have another question though: if I use the setting you wrote, would it be possible to connect my macbook to my desktop pc through the router? Thanks!
 
Snookerman said:
if I use the setting you wrote, would it be possible to connect my macbook to my desktop pc through the router? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Yes

-----and some basic terms--------

Modem - connects your home network to the main network (stands for MOdulate, DEModulate) in the old days, was used to connect over a phone line.

Hub - a network device that lets you plug in multiple devices, no brains at all, if it comes in on one port, it goes out on all the others.

Switch - Like a hub, but has some brains, it knows what is connected to each output, and will direct traffic to the appropriate port instead of all of them.

Router - Like a switch, but adds a connection to the outside world, It typically has some protection (firewall) between the WAN (wide area network, or "outside world") and the LAN (local area network or your home network). It will route signals from one "area" to the other, so if you were to have a web server at home, it would send the traffic from the outside to the appropriate machine on the inside. can be either wired, wireless, or both. Normally, will also handle assigning addresses to devices on the network.

access point - what your express will be set up as, simple acts as a wired to wireless converter. doesn't really think too much about what it's sending.

-----
Your device is a combination modem and router.
 
Thanks so much waw74, I think I know how things work now. Just a question, how do I connect the mac to the pc through the router? I've tried to do it through a workgroup (not that I really know what that is :eek:) and I changed the name of the pc workgroup from mshome to workgroup but my mac doesn't find it. At the moment, I just use an ethernet cable from my pc to my mac and I have to unplug the computers from the internet in order to do that. It would be nice to just be able to do the workgroup thing. Thanks again!
 
The machines should be able to see each other when plugged into the router.
You may just need to enable file sharing on both machines, check out the google.

to see if they can talk to each other,
find out the ip of the mac
*open system preferences under the apple menu.
*select Network
*select ethernet
*get the 4 number separated by periods.

On the PC.
*start menu
*run
*type "cmd" (no quotes)
*type "ping ###.###.###.###" with that being the number that you got on the mac.

if they can see each other, you should see lines that start to appear that say "reply from"


--------------------

with just a cable between, them, you'll need to manually set the IP address on each computer.
if they go through the router, you don't need to do this.

XP instructions
Mac instructions
for 10.4, main difference is the button is labeled configure, in 10.6 it's "advanced"

for other versions, just google "change ip"

you'll want to set the ip to 192.168.0.XXX
the XXX is a number from 1 to 255, each computer gets a unique number

subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 on both.

workgroups don't really matter.
 
Thanks, but the ping didn't work, it had four time-out and then said it "lost" 4. I tried several tutorials on connecting through a workgroup but the computers won't find each other.

The strange thing is, when I'm in my girlfriend's apartment and I connect to the internet, all computers and workgroups appear in the finder and I can just click them and connect to them. She has free internet so I'm guessing all apartments in the building are connected to the same router.

So when I don't want to connect, it's as easy as pie, but when I do want to, it just doesn't work.
 
waw74 said:
just trying to break things down into basic terms, if you read the whole thing, it does go into all the other things a router does.
Click to expand...

Even the router portion of a consumer device is not like a switch. A router routes packets from one subnet to another, that's it. The consumer routers have many other features packed on them that have nothing to do with routing. In most consumer routers, they are bridging various ports too.

OP, what are the IPs and subnet masks of the machines you are trying to connect to? Also, are the firewalls turned off for the moment?
 
Ok, I've manage to ping the mac from my pc and also the pc from my mac. I've also enabled file sharing, so now I know they can talk to each other. What's next? Thanks!
 
Never mind, I've got it! Thank you so much guys! Turns out I had to connect to server but to a different IP address than when I just do it through the cable. Also, I had to turn off my firewall completely, although when I connect through cable, there is an exception that allows my macbook to connect. I guess I'll have to add a different exception.

Interesting that the PC icon is the blue screen of death.
 
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