Creating a network !?

I have one laptop and one desktop pc.My question is how to connect these two computers for gaming(playing counter strike in lan).Both computers have network cards and i have CAT5 cable(RJ45).I have connected the cable on the laptop and on the pc but i do not know what to do next.Please help me!!!I'm new to networking so i need some detailed instructions!!!!Laptop runs on vista home 32 and desktop on xp.Laptop is asus m70vm.

 

You'll need to purchase a router in order to network the systems together, I do not think many computers are capable of directly connecting to each other over a cable.

 

First, make sure that the desktop either (i) has SP3 installed (the preferable option), or (ii) has the Link Layer Topology Discovery responder installed - this is necessary if you don't have, and won't install, SP3 on the XP machine, because without it the _Vista machine may not properly "see" the XP machine on the two-computer network you'll be setting up.

Second, take a gander at the step-by-step instructions on this webpage - those should be sufficient for you to get a direct wired ethernet connection set up between your laptop and your desktop.

 

You'll need a Cross-over UTP cable to connect directly, that's the cheapest way by far.

The normal UTP network cable is only suitable for indirect connections using a switch or router.

Cross-Over means the transmit and receive wire are crossed. Usually these cables are marked with a text - all decent computer stores have them.

 

You'll only need a cross-over cable if one or both of the computers in question does not have auto-MDI/MDIX as a feature of its ethernet card.

or, as stated in the webpage I linked to:

 

Auto-crossover is standard these days.

You just need to set the IP address of both computers and then you should be able to see each other on CSS. You might need to install the hotfix to see each other on Vista though. I never had problems myself with XP2 to Vista

 

On the laptop i have gigabit ethernet network adapter but on the desktop i have the network adapter integrated on the motherboard.It is a nForce4 motherboard.Is that a problem?Will i have to buy a separate gigabit ethernet network adapter for the desktop or ill be able to use the integrated one?I have a twisted pair(crossover cable).

 

Shouldnt matter what cable you have. Most gigabit adapters will automatically cross over anyway.

The difference between the cross over and straight through cable is the wires orientation, its the opposite way.

You just need to set up the IP config since there wont be a DHCP server to assign it automatically.

Desktop:
IP: 192.168.3.1
SUBNET: 255.255.255.0

Notebook:
IP: 192.168.3.2
SUBNET: 255.255.255.0

If you have the internet via wifi or something, you can share the internet to both computers.

 

will the motherboard integrated network adapter on the desktop do the work,or ill have to buy and install PCI Gigabit Ehernet network adapter?

 

No you do not need to, only if you want it to run on 1000mbps (gigabit) instead of 100mbps.