Question How to network multiple PCs together with a Netgear modem ?

[Lendstop11]

Heya,

Im trying to setup a home network that consists of my main work PC being able to communicate to other PCs on an ethernet cabled network. The computers are physically next to each other in the same room. The aim being to create a render blade network. The main PC being my work PC, and the other PCs acting as render blades/computers. Ideally i want to be able to use windows remote desktop to access these machines.

I bought a Netgear GS305 Modem believing that I could connect the main PC to this in port 1 for example, and the other PCs into port 2 and 3 etc. However i just cant for the life of me, understand what im supposed to do next to get them actually talking to each other.

Ive tried remote desktop with the IP details etc, and nothing works. Ive looked into trying to access the modem interface? and Netgear give an IP to use but nothing happens.

Am i even approaching this in the correct way? Do i need to purchase a home RAID/NAS drive and get them all talking to that? i was aiming to just use my main PC essentially as the server to distribute the render jobs and keep all the files/data on that.

Im at a total loss of how to do this now, ive been googling and searching for weeks on how this actually works but nothing seems to help. Ive turned on network and file sharing on both computers, tried connecting with the corresponding IPs and nothing at all. The render PCs dont have internet access as they dont need it, and are only connected to the Netgear modem via an ethernet cable.

Can anyone help in explaining how to approach this?

Any help would be massively appreciated.

 

[BFG-9000]

The Netgear GS305 is not a modem or a router, it's an unmanaged switch. Unmanaged means there are no settings, and therefore no GUI interface.

To create a network using only an unmanaged switch, every PC must have a fixed IP address in the same subnet, because nothing is handing out automatic addresses via DHCP.

 

[faalin]

On the computer you want to remote to,

click on file explore
right click this PC and go to properties
scroll down the new window to Remote Desktop
in the remote desktop window turn on remote desktop

Once turned on, on your main computer open the Remote Desktop Connection app
Type in the computer name you want to connect to (you dont have to use IP addresses, you can but you dont have to)
Type in the user name and password for user on the computer your trying to remote to.

 

[Lendstop11]

The Netgear GS305 is not a modem or a router, it's an unmanaged switch. Unmanaged means there are no settings, and therefore no GUI interface.

To create a network using only an unmanaged switch, every PC must have a fixed IP address in the same subnet, because nothing is handing out automatic addresses via DHCP.

Thanks for the reply.

Would you know of any modem/router i should look into for this?

 

[Lendstop11]

On the computer you want to remote to,

click on file explore
right click this PC and go to properties
scroll down the new window to Remote Desktop
in the remote desktop window turn on remote desktop

Once turned on, on your main computer open the Remote Desktop Connection app
Type in the computer name you want to connect to (you dont have to use IP addresses, you can but you dont have to)
Type in the user name and password for user on the computer your trying to remote to.

Hi,

Ive tried this but still not having any luck, i just get an error.

Ive assigned a static IP using this link here:
https://www.trendnet.com/press/resource-library/how-to-set-static-ip-address

On step 5, would you know what IP i should be using? If im setting this on my main PC, what IP do i enter?

 

[BFG-9000]

You said the render PCs don't need internet access so why would you get a modem? A router would certainly be a convenience, as then you wouldn't need to set fixed IP addresses on everything for the network to work.

If you followed the instructions and set the main PC at 192.168.10.10, then set the 2nd PC at 192.168.10.11, the 3rd PC at 192.168.10.12, etc.

Note if your main work PC has internet access then you must be very careful to set only the ethernet port attached to the switch to 192.168.10.10, and not the port or wifi adapter used to access the internet.

 

[Lendstop11]

You said the render PCs don't need internet access so why would you get a modem? A router would certainly be a convenience, as then you wouldn't need to set fixed IP addresses on everything for the network to work.

If you followed the instructions and set the main PC at 192.168.10.10, then set the 2nd PC at 192.168.10.11, the 3rd PC at 192.168.10.12, etc.

Note if your main work PC has internet access then you must be very careful to set only the ethernet port attached to the switch to 192.168.10.10, and not the port or wifi adapter used to access the internet.

Hey again,

Ive just assigned the IPs and in the "ethernet status" im now receiving a constant stream of data "received".

Just tried remote desktop with the assigned static IP of the render PC and it worked! its now asking for my credentials which now is the next problem as it says they're incorrect.

Googling this seems to suggest i need a Microsoft account to use remote desktop?? When i installed windows on my machines i bypasses needing to setup an account.... do i now need to make one just to do this? or are they referring to the user account on the physical machine?

Ive used remote desktop for years at companies ive worked at, but i seem to remember we used an account and password provided to us from IT. Do i need to do something like that for this?

Thanks for the all help so far.

 

[BFG-9000]

If you installed Windows using a local account on them, the credentials are just the Windows username and login password for the computer to be connected to. May be different than the login for the machine you are on, and Windows may even be set to auto-login so you don't normally have to enter them, but they are there.

The computer to be connected to must be running a Pro or Enterprise version of Windows, not Home. Under Remote Desktop you have to tick "Enable Remote Desktop". "Make my PC discoverable on private networks" also should be enabled, and try toggling "Require computers to use Network Level Authentication (NLA) to connect" if you have problems.

 

[faalin]

Hi,

Ive tried this but still not having any luck, i just get an error.

Ive assigned a static IP using this link here:
https://www.trendnet.com/press/resource-library/how-to-set-static-ip-address

On step 5, would you know what IP i should be using? If im setting this on my main PC, what IP do i enter?

Unless this is a pro vs home thing, all my computers at home use windows pro. I have 4 desktops and 2 Dell R320 servers, while the servers run server 2022 I dont have a domain setup, active directory, or dhcp run off it. I also have a full Ubiquiti network with layer 2 switches and anything hardwired is statically assigned the only thing that is handed out DHCP is wifi.

But any of my computers that i remote desktop to i just type in the name of the computer to access it, i never us the IP address.

Even at work, once again everything is PRO, everything is joined to a domain, with active directory, and the server handing out DHCP i still remote desktop to all the computers by name, never IP address.

 

[Lendstop11]

If you installed Windows using a local account on them, the credentials are just the Windows username and login password for the computer to be connected to. May be different than the login for the machine you are on, and Windows may even be set to auto-login so you don't normally have to enter them, but they are there.

The computer to be connected to must be running a Pro or Enterprise version of Windows, not Home. Under Remote Desktop you have to tick "Enable Remote Desktop". "Make my PC discoverable on private networks" also should be enabled, and try toggling "Require computers to use Network Level Authentication (NLA) to connect" if you have problems.

ive managed to get them working now, the render blade appears on the render software and can send and recieve data! so thanks for helping with this

I now have another more technical issue, in that the render PC cant save the files to my main PC "C drive". Its looking like i might need to buy a NAS drive. Is it possible to make C drive on my main PC discoverable on the LAN network?

Thank you again for all the help so far

 

[Lendstop11]

Unless this is a pro vs home thing, all my computers at home use windows pro. I have 4 desktops and 2 Dell R320 servers, while the servers run server 2022 I dont have a domain setup, active directory, or dhcp run off it. I also have a full Ubiquiti network with layer 2 switches and anything hardwired is statically assigned the only thing that is handed out DHCP is wifi.

But any of my computers that i remote desktop to i just type in the name of the computer to access it, i never us the IP address.

Even at work, once again everything is PRO, everything is joined to a domain, with active directory, and the server handing out DHCP i still remote desktop to all the computers by name, never IP address.

Hi,

yeah all my PCs are on Windows 11 PRO. as i mentioned to the other poster, i now have data transfer between the machines so thats a massive thing ticked off, "the static IP setup did the trick".

My issue now is trying to get the render PC to save its file outputs onto my main PC C drive. Do you know if thats possible to do? Ive made a folder in my C drive "Network_Renders" but im still getting errors from the render PC saying it cant access the C drive. Ive shared my C drive via the properties tab, and it now has a green arrow on the icon.

 

[faalin]

go back into the properties for your "Network_Renders" folder and go to the sharing tab. Right under the folder it will say Network path, write that down....... should be something like \\computer name\folder name

On your rendering computer click on file explore and then This PC. Where it shows all your drives right click and select add a network location. Click next a few times and you will get a box that says internet or network address. In that box put in the network path the you wrote down, if it doesnt accept that then put in the IP address of the computer that is sharing the folder instead of the name. So instead of \\computer name\folder name put \\IP Address\folder name

Once it accepts the network path it will probably ask for credentials, type in the user name and password for the user account that is sharing the folder.

Your program should then be able to save to that folder then.

 

[Lendstop11]

go back into the properties for your "Network_Renders" folder and go to the sharing tab. Right under the folder it will say Network path, write that down....... should be something like \\computer name\folder name

On your rendering computer click on file explore and then This PC. Where it shows all your drives right click and select add a network location. Click next a few times and you will get a box that says internet or network address. In that box put in the network path the you wrote down, if it doesnt accept that then put in the IP address of the computer that is sharing the folder instead of the name. So instead of \\computer name\folder name put \\IP Address\folder name

Once it accepts the network path it will probably ask for credentials, type in the user name and password for the user account that is sharing the folder.

Your program should then be able to save to that folder then.

You're amazing.

Its all up and working. I cant thank you enough for helping me with this! Best IT help ive had in years haha!

Thank you again

 

[faalin]

no problem, its what we do here 😀

 

[Lendstop11]

no problem, its what we do here 😀

If i can bother you for another question....

So i use 3ds max for my rendering, and all is working as intended. The files get transfered via the software and they get rendered off.

However for the "textures" that are used on the models, they are not being picked up by the render PC. A solution ive found is to use the technique you said earlier, about copying the path via the "sharing" tab on the properties and then i manually update the path this way.

This is however incredibly time consuming if i were to have 40+ textures for example.

Is this issue occurring because its a C drive on my main PC, and the path for these textures are confusing the render PC by making it look on its own C drive for them also? The folders on my main PC are all shared with the render PC and i can even access them and browse them via my render PC, so i dont think this is a network issue, just a path/name issue.

Would the solution be to purchase that NAS/RAID drive? Or is there a way to perhaps force windows to always use the full path? Sorry if this is an even more specific question!

 

[faalin]

Im not sure in 3ds max as we dont use it at work. I did find this with a quick google search.

Full Link

3Ds Max​

When you open up your scene in 3Ds Max and where the texture files are missing, you're going to get the "missing external files" dialogue box. We're going to want to relink our missing files to different location so they can show up properly.

To relink your missing textures, hit "continue," then follow these steps:

• Go to "File" > "Reference" > "Asset Tracking Toggle"
  • This will bring up all the assets potentially missing
    
• Select all of the missing assets, right-click, then select "Set the path"
  
  
• Click the "..." to set a new path to align with where your textures are stored
  
  
• Click "Use path" (then click "use path" again) and you'll see your new path selected.
  
  
• Click "Ok"

Wait a few minutes while it's relinking all your textures, and you're ready to build!


Not sure if this is what you are already doing?


Im not sure if there is a location inside of the setting that you can set the file path to always look at.