How can I network 3 computers from an ordinary network cable without a switch?
Q. I have a Cat 5e cable, RJ45 connectors and 3 computers with network cards. Is it possible for me to network these three computers without using a switch or a router? If the switch has a simple circuit, I can make it my own.
Thank you for helping me on this.
Related posts:
only if one of them has two NICs and you configure that one as a router… not trivial. workgroup switches are cheap these days, I’d suggest you pick one up…
Not easily. With new routers less than $30 and used ones less than $10, why try to build something that probably won’t work?
Seriously, get a cheap router. That’s the only way to do it without pulling out your hair trying to configure some computer to act as a switch…
If you do not need internet access from all 3 computers, then a cheap network switch may suffice. You will have to manually configure all the network configurations on the 3 computers. Again, even if just using the “switch side” of a cheap router, it’s a lot easier since the router provides DHCP.
Ok I know for a fact that you can re-wire your cat 5e cable into a Cat 5e crossover cable however, this will only allow two of the computers to be networked together. In order to put three of the computers together you would a total of 4 network cards each computer has one except one would house two of them for connection to eachother.
You need to add more NIC PCI cards onto your desktop. Just make sure each desktop has 3 NIC ports.