I truly need some good advice and direction in making my home network work.

[Pappy714]

I currently have four pcs hooked up to internet in my house. I ran hard wires throughout house, and am running patch cables through Ethernet ports on wireless router because of poor reception throughout house. I want to join all computers into one home group/work group, but they are all setting as separate networks, i.e. network 3, 4 , 5 etc. I am new to this, and would like to get all computers talking together, sharing etc. Now, you folks will throw terms at me like sub-net, static IP's, etc - please remember, I'm a babe in the woods; talk me through this please, it would be greatly appreciated. (You all have probably already done this a few hundred times - sorry if I gotta ask once more.) It was quite a feat for me to get my house hard wired, now I just want to finish creating one big happy network. Got every PC running win 10, using xfinity modem/router as main internet source with a Linksys ac1200+ wifi router as my "hub" for my Ethernet; probably need to re assign ip addresses so there is no conflict, but don't want to monkey around till I have a fairly good handle on doing it right. So... any takers? Help this old Vietnam vet get into the 21st century guys... and thank you for your time.

 

[Pappy714]

In reading some of the posts here, maybe it helps to explain all I'm trying to do.
1)Game room: computer; smart tv; ps4; xbox 360
2)Living room: smart tv; blue ray player (w/netflix, etc.)
3)Boy's room: smart tv, PC, he's a gamer (me, I'm still trying to beat pong...)
4)Master bedroom: wireless laptop; smart tv; blue ray (same as above)
5)home office: I'm a blogger, got my own rig I built, main internet connection here, want to set up my PC as server(??)

As I said, asking a lot. Currently got 105mps internet connection, got 11 hdd/sdd's running on my rig (around 9TB storage); all other PC's/laptop have 1 to 3 TB storage, 8 to 16 GB ram, etc. If I can get network all up and running, would like to be able to render 3d across platforms, etc. Got plans, just not sure how to do them...

 

[jsmithepa]

Yeah, free forums like this, we can only UNSTUCK you. The folks answering your questions are not paid consultants but only hobbyists like yourself. Free means a lot of ground work is on you. Fortunately there are a lot of basic info on the Web.

I am going to untuck you from your first question: network 3, 4 etc. (this is my method, there maybe others)

In Windows, you have a screen like this, You want to make a generic label, in my case "LAN" I don't know if this is just a label but why not make it consistent across all your PC anyways. Just click it and rename it to whatever you want, on ALL the PCs. The second thing you want do to is, make LAN your HOME NETWORK, then you can have everybody participate on your HOME GROUP, and everybody should be able to talk to each other no prob.

If unsure of these capitalized wording am throwing at you (They have specific Microsoft meanings) please Google for detailed explanations.

 

[DeadlyDays]

When we talk subnet, we are talking IP addresses. IP addresses being the address assigned to each machine on the network, so they know which information is for them when the information is sent across the network.
An IPv4 IP address, which is what we mostly all use here in the US. It looks like this, ###.###.###.###
The number in each section can be anywhere between 0 and 255, the first set has to start with at least a 1.
Everything is in the same subnet if they have the same numbers in the first 3 sections, and they will be able to "see" themselves on the network. If there is a different number in any of the first 3 numbers, they ignore the information considering it separate from their own network.

There are a few ranges of IP addresses that are reserved for private use, the rest are used on the internet for addressing. Typically, most people use 192.168.X.X, specifically the subnet 192.168.1.X or 192.168.0.X

A router will offer DHCP service to your network typically, what this means is if the device is setup for dynamically assigned IP addresses, it will ask the DHCP service on the router for its own settings to use on the network. typically on home devices this will be between 150-200 on the same subnet as the routers internal IP(because it will have an external facing one for the internet to see it, because internet is different from intranet(your private network).

So that is a range of 50 devices that will work already setup, you can change the range in the routers web interface, by opening a browser on a device on the network and putting in the IP address of the router(typically 192.168.X.1)

Now, the router is the core of a home network, everything typically connects to it, and it connects to the modem which is your portal to the internet. most home routers only come with 4 LAN connections, the WAN connection being reserved to connect to the modem/internet.

If you want to connect more devices, typically you'd connect them wirelessly. But you can also use switches, or configure routers to connect. Configuring the routers incorrectly and the routers will either cause IP conflicts or assign devices to another subnet and not allow them to connect(or just cause an issue with NAT(which is devices accessing things behind a router). If you are using a dumb switch(which is easiest), 1 cable between switch and router LAN port, and everything else can connect to the switch, and done. If using another router, you want to disable DHCP on the router, set the internal IP of the router to Dynamically get an address, or an IP address in the same subnet that isn't in the range DHCP serves from the main router. Then hook everything to the LAN ports(including the main router), ignore the WAN port. This will keep everything on the same subnet and communicating properly.

That is a basic overview and may help you understand what you need to do.

 

[Pappy714]

When we talk subnet, we are talking IP addresses. IP addresses being the address assigned to each machine on the network, so they know which information is for them when the information is sent across the network.
An IPv4 IP address, which is what we mostly all use here in the US. It looks like this, ###.###.###.###
The number in each section can be anywhere between 0 and 255, the first set has to start with at least a 1.
Everything is in the same subnet if they have the same numbers in the first 3 sections, and they will be able to "see" themselves on the network. If there is a different number in any of the first 3 numbers, they ignore the information considering it separate from their own network.

There are a few ranges of IP addresses that are reserved for private use, the rest are used on the internet for addressing. Typically, most people use 192.168.X.X, specifically the subnet 192.168.1.X or 192.168.0.X

A router will offer DHCP service to your network typically, what this means is if the device is setup for dynamically assigned IP addresses, it will ask the DHCP service on the router for its own settings to use on the network. typically on home devices this will be between 150-200 on the same subnet as the routers internal IP(because it will have an external facing one for the internet to see it, because internet is different from intranet(your private network).

So that is a range of 50 devices that will work already setup, you can change the range in the routers web interface, by opening a browser on a device on the network and putting in the IP address of the router(typically 192.168.X.1)

Now, the router is the core of a home network, everything typically connects to it, and it connects to the modem which is your portal to the internet. most home routers only come with 4 LAN connections, the WAN connection being reserved to connect to the modem/internet.

If you want to connect more devices, typically you'd connect them wirelessly. But you can also use switches, or configure routers to connect. Configuring the routers incorrectly and the routers will either cause IP conflicts or assign devices to another subnet and not allow them to connect(or just cause an issue with NAT(which is devices accessing things behind a router). If you are using a dumb switch(which is easiest), 1 cable between switch and router LAN port, and everything else can connect to the switch, and done. If using another router, you want to disable DHCP on the router, set the internal IP of the router to Dynamically get an address, or an IP address in the same subnet that isn't in the range DHCP serves from the main router. Then hook everything to the LAN ports(including the main router), ignore the WAN port. This will keep everything on the same subnet and communicating properly.

That is a basic overview and may help you understand what you need to do.

 

[Pappy714]

Yeah, free forums like this, we can only UNSTUCK you. The folks answering your questions are not paid consultants but only hobbyists like yourself. Free means a lot of ground work is on you. Fortunately there are a lot of basic info on the Web.

I am going to untuck you from your first question: network 3, 4 etc. (this is my method, there maybe others)

In Windows, you have a screen like this, You want to make a generic label, in my case "LAN" I don't know if this is just a label but why not make it consistent across all your PC anyways. Just click it and rename it to whatever you want, on ALL the PCs. The second thing you want do to is, make LAN your HOME NETWORK, then you can have everybody participate on your HOME GROUP, and everybody should be able to talk to each other no prob.

If unsure of these capitalized wording am throwing at you (They have specific Microsoft meanings) please Google for detailed explanations.

 

[Pappy714]

I will follow your advice also - this is what I wanted, just a place to start... I'm all about the working end - that's why I built my computers from scratch, why I hard wired my house, etc. (well, so I can watch Green Bay play also, but that's another story). Thank you for your suggestions, I'll put them all to good use.