[bundee1]

Im using a router that I had laying around to connect my PC to my squeezebox with ethernet cable. Can I use a crossover cable without a router to connect my PC to my squeezebox?

[GBB]

Yes - I've done this and it works like a charm.

I normally use my Squeezebox through a wireless router but when visiting friends I've run it directly from my laptop with a crossover cable.

---Gary

[Goosepond]

Very interesting. This is the kind of trick that would help me make the intimidating jump to a music server. I've got no use for a PC network, router, etc. But I thought that complexity was required as I'd never seen such a work-around as this crossover cable.

Anyone care to point me to more info or just expand on where to look for such a cable?

Thanks,

Gene

[mgalusha]

Most computer stores should have one. Best Buy carries them but IMO they are charging too much, $20.99.

If you go this route you have to assign an address to both the computer and the SB since you won't have a router to do this automatically. It's not hard but you will have to know/learn something about networking. I'm sure there are step by step instructions out there.

mike

[ted_b]

http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&id=ID6214463&partno=02219&search=CROSSOVER&rsite=google.comsearc&rcode=

Go to SlimDevices forum and search on "assign static ip" and you'll get some good info.  It's not difficult, just probably an area you haven't stumbled across before.

[bundee1]

Where do you find the IP address of your computer.

[JEaton]

Im using a router that I had laying around to connect my PC to my squeezebox with ethernet cable. Can I use a crossover cable without a router to connect my PC to my squeezebox?

Yes, you can.  If it's a fairly new PC, though, you might be able to use a standard ethernet cable.  Most new network cards and chipsets utilize auto-MDX, where they'll internally cross over the connection if they can't at first connect to the device at the other end.  If you post the PC model and/or network card, we could look it up.

If you config both the PC and the Squeezebox to use DHCP for getting a network address, then it should work without touching any network settings.  In the absence of a DHCP server, each of them will auto-configure their network settings (APIPA -Automatic Private IP Addressing) to an address in the 169.254.0.0/255.255.0.0 range.  The only real downside to this is that the Squeezebox may take an extra 15 seconds or so to boot up.

[Goosepond]

http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&id=ID6214463&partno=02219&search=CROSSOVER&rsite=google.comsearc&rcode=

Go to SlimDevices forum and search on "assign static ip" and you'll get some good info.  It's not difficult, just probably an area you haven't stumbled across before.

Thanks Ted.

From the description at the link you provided, it appears that I already have this x-over cable. I used it to connect my old PC to my new one a couple of years ago in order to transfer some files. My first experience with any kind of networking. It took a while to figure out the communication between Win 98 and Win XP.

And away we go!

Gene