How trivial is it to use my laptop with a friend's (non-wifi) DSL while at their place?

1

I'm visiting a friend in Japan and she has DSL but isn't very computer savvy. I am pretty computer savvy but never used DSL directly before. I want to know if it is easy or not to use my computer on her DSL while I'm visiting.

  • We both have Windows 7 installed
  • She doesn't have wifi just a box with "phone" and power cables going in and a network cable coming out
  • We don't need to use both computers online at the same time
  • I tried just unplugging her laptop and plugging mine in but my machine saw only a network and not the Internet

(apologies if this is a common question but searching didn't find anything, possibly because I don't know the right terminology)

EDIT

  • There seems to be something on my friend's computer called a "WAN miniport adapter" which must be started with a doubleclick in the area where the wifi connections would normally appear. This doesn't seem to refer to any kind of extra hardware. When I doubleclick on it the login dialog with username and password fields appears. I can't tell if this dialog is part of Windows 7 or some kind of driver software from the DSL modem/provider.

hippietrail

Posted 2011-06-10T08:06:05.880

Reputation: 3 699

That might be PPPoE, and you might need username and password to login to internet. – YOU – 2011-06-10T08:26:38.203

@YOU: Oh yes I meant to say that she does have to enter a username and password but I don't even get the dialog box appear where that info is entered. – hippietrail – 2011-06-10T08:43:00.403

1you need to go through internet connection setup on Control panel to get dialog box, I think. – YOU – 2011-06-10T08:44:06.077

Answers

3

Most DSL providers require you to use Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPoE) and authenticate to access the Internet.

  1. Click on the Network icon next in the notification area next to your clock (the same icon your normally click to select a wireless network), and click Network and Sharing Center.

  2. Click Set up a new connection or network.

  3. Make sure Connect to the Internet is selected and click Next.

  4. Select Broadband (PPPoE).

  5. Enter your friend's username and password and click Connect.

Patches

Posted 2011-06-10T08:06:05.880

Reputation: 14 078

Yes, that's probably the issue here. Many DSL modems contain a router that handles the PPPoE stuff for you, and gives you several Ethernet ports to connect to. But if the modem is "only" a modem, the PPPoE login has to be done by the computer, as described. – sleske – 2011-06-10T10:26:43.337

Took me a while since my friend had to find her password, plus it was not clear that it requires both the PPPOE and LAN connections, which is still quite cryptic for me... – hippietrail – 2011-06-16T01:13:38.290

1

Normaly your DSL modem hast a ethernet connector where you can attach any computer with an ethernet port. This is the preferable way.

Sometimes DSL Modems also have WIFI build into them, in that case it's probaly the best solution to connect to that WIFI connection.

Sometimes DSL-Modems feature only an USB connector (if it has both USB and ethernet then take the ethernet connector!) in this case you might need to install additional drivers on your laptop.

BTW: if the DSL has only an ethernet connector and you want to have both computers (yours and the one from your friend) then you can do this by adding a router like the wrt54 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series

raudi

Posted 2011-06-10T08:06:05.880

Reputation: 181

Thanks. The modem only has an ethernet connector as far as I can tell. That's what my friend uses. But as I say when I plug it in I get a connection to the modem (I guess) but not to the Internet. – hippietrail – 2011-06-10T08:34:50.327

that depends. most of the times the DSL modem will also feature a DHCP so if you set your computer to use DHCP it will automatically get an IP Address, gateway etc. So you will have to make sure you have your computer configured to use DHCP (which is normaly the case in win 7 i guess) If this is not the working then you'll have to find out what IP and/or gateway you'll have to configure manually. BTW: it might also be that you have to configure a proxy server (you'll find this in the configuration of IE or firefox) – raudi – 2011-06-10T09:22:20.850

do this: open a command line(start and type cmd.exe) type ipconfig return this will give you a list of networkadapters basicly what you find under "Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:" should be the same on both computers (especialy the gateway) if this is the case try to ping the gateway: ping 192.168.xxx.yyy (use the ip address that you see behind gateway) – raudi – 2011-06-10T09:27:48.720

Asked: 2011-06-10T08:06:05.880

Viewed: 172 times

Active: 2017-07-31T19:34:43.820