Ever needed to connect two computers together without going through a wireless network? I’ve previously written about how to connect two computers wirelessly using an ad-hoc wireless network, but it’s not as fast as being directly connected.
If your computer are on a wired network, you can network two computers and then share files and folders, but it’s a lot of work! A crossover cable is another way to connect two computers and transfer data.
In order for this setup to work, there are a few things you need to make sure are setup or configured properly. I will try to go through all the different steps in this article.
Step 1 – Configure IP Addresses
Usually, if you are using a crossover cable to connect two computers, the computers are not connected to a LAN network. In this case, you will need to configure static IP addresses for each computer.
You have to make sure that both computers have IP addresses that are on the same subnet. For example, if you give one computer an IP address of 192.168.0.1, then you should give the second computer an IP of 192.168.0.2.
If you used the above IP addresses, you should use a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. If you use an incorrect subnet mask, the connection will not work.
Lastly, the value for the default gateway should be the same on both machines. You can pick which IP address you want to use, but use it on both computers for the default gateway. Below is how my setup looks for one computer:
Step 2 – Crossover Cable
The second thing you need to verify is that you actually have a proper crossover cable. Basically, there are a few different types of crossover cables, but it’s best to get the standard crossover cable where the green and orange pairs are swapped and the brown and blue pairs stay in the same position.
The only pins that need to be crossed are 1,3 and 2,6. So just check your cable on both end and make sure it matches the diagram.
Step 3 – Local User Accounts
If you’re having problems accessing files both ways, you may have to create a user account on each computer that has the same name and same password. This helps get past any kind of Access is Denied errors that may pop up.
Make sure the accounts are administrator accounts also! It’s best to create a new account rather than rename a current account.
Step 4 – Disable Firewalls
Finally, you should disable the firewall on both computers to ensure that none of the file sharing ports are being blocked. You can do this by going to Control Panel and then Windows Firewall. Click on Off.
That’s about it! If you follow all these steps, each computer should be able to access the other properly. If you are having problems, post a comment here and I will try to help! Enjoy!
Its a great method to connecting two computers using a crossover cable. Thanks for sharing such nice information. It was very valuable.
If I might just add a little bit of clarification and expansion on some of the points above. If you have two computers with gigabit interfaces then do not use a crossover cable as that will limit the connection to 100Mbs, for a gigabit connection you must use a straight through cable, cat 5e or better.
The important thing about netmasks is that they should be consistent and allow for all computers on that segment, apart from that you can use almost anything you like on a private network. As there are only two computers on this segment you could use anything from 128.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.252. Using the default class c netmask of 255.255.255.0 is fine but not essential.
Absolutely no need for a default gateway to be set, there is no way off this network and even if you do set it, it could be different on each computer without affecting anything.
Keep up the good work.
Interesting what you are saying about the cat5 cables I tried this to connect 2 pcs together one running XP Pro and one running Win7 with GB network cards and both show a gb connection with crossover cable but I've not used anything to check the actual transfer speed, how can you connect 2 pcs directly with a staight through cable?
The issue with this arrangement that I cant seem to resolve is:
Both pcs have wireless connection and it all works fine with the addition of the cross over cable. I transfer large amounts of data between the 2 pcs and need the systems to use the crossover cable route for this action.
BUT for some reason the data transfer periodically seems to attempt to use the wireless router path and of course a significant slowing in the transfer. I can check the connection on the cable and it is good. I've tried with both fixed and DCHP ip configuration.
My question is when moving data between pcs is it possible to force on the wired path and achieve the high throughput needed?
Thanks
Trevnew, have you tried disabling the wireless card while doing the transfers?
la-cabara,
Thanks for the suggestion but no I haven't, they work concurrently and independantly of each other 70% of the time and having to disable cards everytime I use it sort of defeats the object of a process running in the background. I'm sure if i did disable it would work 100% but that is not what I'm trying to achieve
Cheers
I want to connect XP with a windows server 2003 via crossover cable. Is it possible to happen? I ping the address of each other but no connection is there.
thx for this, but its not working, the connection between 2 comps is good, but on the other comp i cant connect to internet
hi i tried all above things but still its not working for me i ve 2 personal computers, i tried at my frnds place with pc & laptop with same cable there it worked…..plz help me…….thnk u.
Hi,
I'm trying to connect a laptop with vista to a pc with vista using a crossover ethernet cable. I've gone through all the steps above and can see icons for both the laptop and the pc on the network places screen, but when I double click on the icon, I get an error message 0×80070035 Network path not found. I've tried pinging the IP addresses and both computers send and receive all four packets of information without any problem. I've set the computer names and the workgroup for both is the same. Everything seems to be fine, except I can't access either the laptop from the PC or vice versa.
Note: my intention is just to be able to transfer files from PC to laptop and vice versa, I don't really need to be able to connect to the internet over the crossover cable or anything like that…Any help or suggestions would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark
Both my desktop (WinXP) and laptop (WinXPPro) are connected via a crossover cable w/ assigned IP addresses. I can PING each successfully (yay!).
But, in Windows Explorer, each computer cannot see the other. I am logged into both w/ administrator rights. What have I missed?
Thank you,
Elizabeth
Hi, I've connected two laptops and I'm still trying to figure out how to get this to work!
Hi. I have a laptop with Windows 7 and a desktop with Windows XP. But, I am not able to share files between the two computers. I have tried your methods using a cross-cable.
Please help.
Hey nick I am facing the similar problem. Can anybody help me out?
What if one computer is connected to the internet and the other one is not?
@All… All those who have problems in accessing the other computer/laptop: Have you people enabled sharing? That seems to be the only thing holding you people back. Do let me know.
I connect two laptops together using a cross over cable and both computers are seeing each other. However, I'm unable to open either of them from the other due to a access permission error.
Error//// pc not accessible; you might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator to find out if you have access permission.
logon failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer.
I have 3 computers, one system having two ethernet card and others with one ethernet card, all are Linux RH OS running, with two cross cables could I connect all the three PC's in one network?
Thanks for the article. Very useful. I can confirm that you should use a straight through cable for gigabit to gigabit communication. If you use a crossover cable, you'll only get 100mbps. Real world file copy/paste results: 100mbps -> 10 MB/s, 1000mbps -> 22 MB/s. Was disappointed that the gigabit file transfer speed wasn't better, but 22MB/s isn't too bad compared to most other methods. Worked perfectly with Ubuntu (Samba) to XP and Win7 to XP. Did not need to adjust any firewall settings.
I want to know that, After setting up both the computers with the crossover cable and configuring them, how can I enable file sharing? I mean, How can I access files of PC-2 on the PC-1? Please elaborate on this.