Using Laptop as a bridge

[jchall49657]

I am trying to use my laptop as a bridge on my wireless network. I just switched to Magicjack for my phone, but I can't run my credit card machine through it, and my router is in another part of the building. I understand how to create a bridge between network connections using Vista, but my ethernet port is not recognizing my credit card machine. Looking for a little help.

 

[mavroxur]

You can enable Internet connection sharing in XP/Vista/7 (share your wireless connection to your wired connection) and put a small 5-port hub or something on the laptop's ethernet connection. It sounds like either your laptop or your POS terminal doesn't support auto-crossover (MDI-X) and thats why you're not getting a link. If you just want to have one wired device, just run a crossover patch cable from the laptop to the terminal. The laptop will hand out DHCP and act like a poor man's router, between your wired devices, and your existing wireless router. I used to run a setup like this in my son's room, because I haven't run CAT6 back there yet, and he has an Xbox 360 Pro and a desktop in his room. I'd recommend investing in a wireless bridge though, as ICS tends to be buggy and the laptop will need to be restarted every couple days at a minimum. I upgraded to a WET54G bridge, and just dump it into a hub, and the bridge passes all DHCP requests to my router, and is basically invisible after you configure it.