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Can I run two iMacs off one cable modem?
- Thread starter Tim in Phoenix
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Your best bet would be to pick up an inexpensive router. You can find a pretty decent one without a lot of bells and whistles for around $40 at any big box store. If you want to spend more, Netgear has the nice 3700 for around $150, or you could go with the Apple Airport Extreme for $180.
Still need a router, and wired ones are really hard to find... no idea where you are in the world -- but my mother picked one up at Target for $35, from belkin. Works perfect, up and running in just a few mintues.
Even if you don't need wireless you should still get a router. A router will allow you to share your Internet connection between your Macs and protect your home network by providing a NAT firewall between your Macs and the public Internet. Also, many ISPs only provide one Internet IP address per cable modem. Two computers can't share the same IP address.
Wired router or gigabit switch. Both will not give you the wireless that you say you don't want/need. Seems to me like getting a wireless one makes sense because a) they're cheap and easy to find and b) it gives you the wired router you want.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)
What you want is a network switch. They are pretty cheap and easy to find. No need to get a router.
What you want is a network switch. They are pretty cheap and easy to find. No need to get a router.
I suppose if you wanted to try, not 100% sure if it would work but turn on internet sharing from the mac plugged into the Modem and use the 2nd mac to connect to that mac via AirPort (by using the 1st macs username/password as the connection username/password).
but a router would just be so much easier and simpler.
but a router would just be so much easier and simpler.
No, a switch won't do the job. The modem will only allow one client to connect.
You NEED a router with NAT.
Actually this works quite well ......
iMac #1 - Connected to cable modem - Turn on Network Sharing and share the connection through Airport.
iMac #2 - Turn on Airport and tell it to connect to Mac #1
DOWNSIDE??? iMac #1 must be on for iMac #2 to get internet access.
Get a Router -
Even the WIRELESS routers should have 4 WIRED PORTS - Connect everything up WIRED and then turn off the wireless section of the Router.
First of all, make absolutely sure that you get a ROUTER, and not a switch (contrary to what some people here suggest)! Explanation: your cable modem only assigns one ip address, that is, it works with only one device directly. A router is a device which acts as a gateway between your local network (your iMacs) and your modem. Here, the router actually creates the local network by assigning ip addresses to the iMacs and "routing" both of them through the single connection provided by the modem.
Even if you don't need a wireless, you will probably have to buy one, as modern routers usually come with wireless. Still, that shouldn't be a problem, as you can easily turn the wireless off. And who know, maybe one day you'll get a smartphone or something, so that wireless could come in handy.
Even if you don't need a wireless, you will probably have to buy one, as modern routers usually come with wireless. Still, that shouldn't be a problem, as you can easily turn the wireless off. And who know, maybe one day you'll get a smartphone or something, so that wireless could come in handy.