Two network cards in a W2K computer?

[fifi]

I have a PC alreaady running on our business network. I need to connect another PC to this one to establish a local ethernet connection to the m/c that's already on the network without affecting the network connection already established. The way I'm thinking of doing this is to install a NIC on the new m/c (win XP Pro) and another NIC on the network m/c (W2K). So I will end up with 2 NICs on the network m/c. Is this possible? what software support will I need to do this? How do I set up the configuration without screwing the network m/c?

[fifi]

Any help on this will be appreciated

[RJ]

Hi,

easiest way to do this would be getting a switch. You connect all PCs to the switch, and they can access each other.
On second thought, I believe you actually need a router. A router is basically an improved switch. With a router you can connect networks together. So you can connect your PCs to the router, and the router to the other network.
The switch does have an uplink port but I believe it can't connect to another network.

But it is also possible to have 2 network cards in one PC, I just don't know how you set this up, but as far as I know you don't need any extra software for this.

RJ

[fifi]

Thanks RJ. I prefer your last option. Two NICs in the W2K m/c. But I am not sure how W2K will handle addressing etc. All I want is to have the W2K m/c to have two networks. One the regular business network and the other a local Ethernet network just between the W2K m/c and the win Xp m/c. Has anybody done this? Any help will be appreciated.

[corosus]

i am running a win 2k pc with 2 NIC's

one is the connection to to lan of my building (internet connection
and the second connects to the pc in my stereo so i can listen to the mp3's on the HD

it works fine, but i have to say i am using assigned ip's on both and the second pc can not acess the other lan. also if you assign a dns server or a gateway to the non-internet connection-NIC it might slow down your internet connection