Hello,
I have a very strange (hardware it seems) problem. I have a laptop and a computer with a network card. When I connect the laptop or the computer to my cable modem it works fine (there is a physical connection), but when I connect my laptop with the computer there is no physical connection between the two machines. I tried connecting the laptop to some routers (it works), but when I connect it to a computer (I tried two other machines) it doesn't work . At this point I have no idea what may be wrong.

I can only guess that neither of the cards want to say 'hello'... but I have no idea how to make them do that.

Here is some data:
The laptop is a hp nx9105 with a realtek rtl 8139 card.
The computer has a realtek 8029(AS) NIC.

Has anybody got an idea what may be wrong or could you tell me where should I ask?
Thanks
Phil

You will need a crossover cable to connect the laptop directly to another computer (unless one of them has an auto-sensing ethernet port).

You are using a patch cable connecting your PC directly with the Laptop, don't you?

A crossover cable ?

googles...

Ahh a crossover cable

You live and learn...

Yes, robert, I'm using what seems to be a straight through cable. I think I'll have to frankenstein the one I have, as the shops are already closed It ain't gonna be pretty...

Thanks for the infomation guys