I have been given a pc which has the Windows 98SE operating system and it is also fitted with a Realtek Network Interface Card. This set up was used successfully by the previous owner to interface to an NTL Broadband ethernet internet connection.

We currently have a laptop with Windows XP which successfully connects to the ethernet connection of our Orange Livebox. This livebox has two ethernet ports, yellow and red, both of which work OK when the ethernet cable is plugged in either.

I will be grateful for advice on whether I can work the Win98SE pc into one of these ports. I've tried it and it doesn't work. Is there a major incompatibilty or does the network interface card (and any other settings) need to be set up with addresses or other configuration information?

As you can no doubt detect, I do not have intimate knowledge of pc settings especially "networking" type issues.

As a further item of information we tried a brand new laptop running Windows Vista connected to the Livebox and that works perfectly, with successful connection to the internet.

Hiya,
If you still need help with this issue, please post back.

Hello Owen

Thanks for your reply. Yes I do still need help if you can please. I assume that the ethernet port on my live box has an address which our Windows XP laptop knows, perhaps because the Orange set up software told it. So can I set up that address in the Windows 98SE computer? Does this question make sense? As I said in my first post, connecting a new Windows Vista laptop worked straight away when connected to the livebox, so is there some clever intelligence in the Vista software to get the address?

If I'm right off the track with this I apologise. Any guidance will be very welcome

Thanks

Hello Again

Since I posted my response to Owen I have cured my problem although I'm not absolutely certain what I did to fix it.

In Win 98 Control Panel, in the Network settings area I added TCP/IP protocol to the Realtek card (I think) and also the Microsoft Network? and after a reboot, the internet connection worked when plugged into the livebox ethernet port.

So I'm not sure what the procedure for this forum is, but my query can now be closed

Thanks