On 02/05/2006, at 3:13 AM, Gregory Anderson wrote: > > Paul, > > I just installed a gigabit switch and have both Macs plugged in as > well > as the cable modem. The purpose of all this was to try out my laptop > as a node, which I haven't done yet. However, internet is really > sketchy now. > > It seems you are using the gigabit ethernet only for node use. Is > that > through a switch or crossover cable? I can put together the same > setup > you have, so my two 1-gigabit-port computers would access the internet > through the G4 with 2 ports? Is there a reason that would work better > than the switch-based "star" formation I am currently using? Yes. your internet connection will be sketchy because it should be on a Wide area network (WAN) which should then be seperate to your local area network (LAN). The way I have mine is the cable modem is on the Node machine's slow (original) ethernet connection because this ethernet port is plenty fast enough for internet speeds. This is my WAN. The gigabit ethernet connection feeds the gigabit switch which all my other computers are connected to. This is my LAN. You then have to use OSX's internet sharing abilities on your node machine to share the internet connection from your WAN to all of the computers on your LAN. You are effectively turning your ode machine into a server. This way only one machine connects to the internet and then it shares that connection to all the other computers. This is how big companies do it with many computers. OSX offers very elegant software as part of the OS that does all of this stuff. Regards ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Paul Najar Jaminajar Music Production www.jaminajar.com