Bridged connection problems

Hi,
I have a desktop connected to my home network with wifi and I've connected my laptop to that computer with a cross-over cable. I've bridged the two connections so my laptop can now access the internet. The problem is the connection keeps cutting out. When I first bridged the connection the laptop told me the network had limited connectivity so I set it up with a static ip address and that solved the problem. The wifi connection to the router is normally very reliable but when bridged it seems to drop its connection occasionally too. What might be causing this?

 

If by "bridging" you mean your using Windows Internet Connection Sharing, That will generally provide an unstable connection. You are using a wifi router so I would suggest getting a wifi card for your laptop or connecting you laptop by ethernet to the router instead of going through your desktop. To communicate with the other computer by way of your network you only need to create shares, be on the same workgroup and have the same usernames and passwords available on both computers.

 

I did this: In Network connections I have my wifi connection and my LAN connection. I selected both, right-clicked and selected "bridge connections". This effectively turns the two connections into one connection on my desktop, and the laptop's lan connection connects to this bridge. I've used internet connection sharing before, but I thought that because the internet comes into the desktop via the wifi, and I connect the laptop to the desktop via the LAN, that I wouldn't be able to share these two connections, and I guessed that's what this bridge feature is for. My laptop does has wifi but the room I use it in is too far away from the router. My desktop pc picks it up because I have a 30m wifi extension cable going down the stairs.

 

Depending on the router you are using, you may be able to add a wifi signal booster to the network that would allow your laptop to connect on its own.

You may also want to try adding another router by bridging it to the original router and accomplishing the same thing or run a cable from the router to an access point that would be near enough to connect to.

The Windows Internet Connection Sharing in my opinion has always been slow and unstable. The only real use I can see for it is if you have dialup and want to share it with another computer in the house.