Daft Question

[tony draper]

Ok, whats the difference betwixt a ethernet socket and a lan socket? me mates laptop has a socket indicated as ethernet and blueyonder broadband works fine on that,his desktop running the same XP has the same kind of socket that is described as LAN,but connecting the ethernet cable from the modem to this socket nowt happens, the puter says it cannot find any modem,it is enabled in bios incidently,

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Well, Ethernet is one of several technologies that can be used to implement a LAN ... but that's really of academic interest for most people, as essentially all LANs that don't use radio waves instead use Ethernet these days, and you can probably tell the difference between an aerial and a socket fairly easily.

However the rest of your question doesn't appear to make any obvious sense. "Enabling" a "modem" in "BIOS" is not part of any operation that gets you to make an internet connection via broadband, is it??

So, chances are that what one manufacturer chooses to call by the terribly jargon-laden punter-unfriendly but technically useful label "Ethernet" and what another manufacturer chooses to call by the terribly user-friendly and uninformative and useless and technically vacuous label "LAN" are the same thing, but whoever is trying to configure the software doesn't actually know what they're doing.

To start with, is the broadband connection ADSL or Cable? If cable, see Robin Walker's web site; if ADSL then someone else will have to help you.

[tony draper]

You wont believe this ,all it needed was the firewall turned off!!bloody stupid instalation disk said turn off progs apart from the firewall,two bloody days we been faffing about,in desperation turned off the firewall and ding!it connected straight up.
arrggghhhhhhh!!:uhoh:
bloody puters
Never mind all three machines happily broadbanded up now
Thanks for the help

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Installation disk:confused: :confused:

Rule number zero: Do not let any ISP's "installation disk" anywhere near your computer, at all, ever.

(It'll just pollute your machine with god knows what, and get in the way of you configuring it properly. If your ISP somehow manages to insist that you can't connect without using their disk then ... er ... choose a different ISP, there are lots out there.)

You do not, by the way, want anything connected directly to the internet without a firewall these days.

[tony draper]

Firewall is switched back on now and its working fine.:rolleyes:

[Keef]

If it's ethernet aka LAN I assume it's connected to a "proper" modem etc that includes a NAT firewall.
Check it out here (https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2).

[Saab Dastard]

Excellent advice Keef -

I heartily recommend that everyone checks their setup regularly.

:ok:

SD

[Lost_luggage34]

Rule number zero: Do not let any ISP's "installation disk" anywhere near your computer, at all, ever.


Very wise advice !

[tony draper]

The chaps previous BT modem was connected to the machines via the USB socket,and some software had to be installed from the instalation disk for that to work as I understand it,we just assumed the new blueyonder modem would be the same but it defaulted to the ethernet socket,never mind,all sorted now.
:rolleyes: