I have an old eMachines eTowerIX 400mhz with Win98 that didn't come with an ethernet card. It only has a dialup modem. I gave it to my granddaughter (who's handicapped and lives with me). I have a Gateway Monterey system that came with an Ethernet card and is connected to DSL directly through an SBCglobal modem which only has one data line port and is connected to the phone jack with a splitter to share it with the phone.
As I said my granddaughter is handicapped (she's had 43 brain surgeries and another one coming up) but I want her to have access to email and a separate chat program I can set up with just the people I know I can trust to chat with her. I also need internet access for it so I can download updates to win98, etc.
Her computer is only about 3 feet from mine because I need to help her a lot since she uses it mostly for educational programs I have on it for her. (I'd also like her to have access to some good internet educational games and stuff too since most of the time she's too sick to go to school.)
I don't have much money to spend on this project but I don't want to set up something that will be so slow it's worthless either.
I connected online with emachines support and was told I'd have to spend $169.95 on a PCI network adapter and another $69.95 on a router. Now, I may not be a whiz at networking but I'm savvy enough to know that buying directly from the PC company is usally many times more expensive than buying the necessary hardware/software elsewhere.
So can you guys tell me what would be the best way to do this and get efficient internet connection to both of them through my DSL?
I read a bunch of stuff about networking and one of the questions I have is will any PCI network adapter work with that old eMachines or would that have something to do with the kind of motherboard it has?
Is a PCI network adapter card and an ethernet card the same thing? If not, what would be the difference? The emachines does has 2 USB connections. 1) Intel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller, and 2) USB Root Hub
The specs from the eMachines site for that model shows:
Specifications
Microsoft® Windows® 98
Intel® Celeron™ 400MHz (w/128KB L2 Cache) PPGA CPU
64MB SyncDRAM (up to 256 MB)
ATI Rage Pro Turbo 2X AGP with 4MB SGRAM
Crystal CS4280 3D PCI Audio
40x Max. CD-ROM Drive
6.4GB HDD (Ultra DMA EIDE)
3.5" 1.44MB FDD
56K* ITU V.90 PCI Fax/Modem
PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse
Stereo Speakers
2 USB Ports (1 is on Front)
1 Serial / 1 Parallel / 3 Expansion Slot
Audio In & Out / Game Port on Front
Internet Ready
Microsoft Works
NOTE: I have upgraded the RAM to 256MB
NOTE: My first Gateway was one of those models that began self-destructing, beginning with the monitor, at 6-months so I have been inside a PC tower many times and have replaced virtually everything but the motherboard (I rebelled at that point and made them send me a new one LOL) so I'm not a completely helpless idiot.
I wanted to set up a home network with my big Gateway as the server and the eMachines as the client if possible so we could share the high speed internet connection. Name [0003] Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter(LNE100TX v4)
My Gateway came with Windows ME and a Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter (LNE 100TXv4) It's a Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 1400MHz GenuineIntel ~1397 Mhz with 128MB RAM (that's not enough but unfortunately it's takes that new expensive RAM and I haven't been able to upgrade it).
Can you guys tell me exactly what I need that will be compatible and not cost me a fortune and how to set it up?
Thanks! Don't know what I would do without you!