YEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! IT WORKS!!!   The problem was the long blue cable... the connectors were not correct... The stupid guy at the store didn't even test it when he made it... and he had the thingy to do it... sigh.. We returned the cable and they made us another (they tested it after making it this time... it took 3 or 4 tries to get a working cable lol, they suck) and now it works fine   What is weird is that the router's light was normal... but it probably just detects one or two out of the 8 conductors of the wire ... so there probably was just one pin that was too deep in the connector so wasn't making contact... anyway........   ...........   But now, ANOTHER problem shows up...   both comps can connect to internet no problem    but... comp#1 cannot see comp#2 in the workgroup comp#2 sees comp#1 in the workgroup, but is given an error when trying to access it (missing authorizations)   we had the exact same problem when trying to connect comp#1 and my friend's comp... so I'm guessing the configuration problem must be on comp#1.   how to give those authorizations to comp#2 to access #1 ? I'm not sure if ZoneAlarm was on or not at the moment of the test, I'll have to try again tomorrow with ZA off... erm I won't be here tomorrow.. so.. emm... sunday probably... or maybe later.. dunno But I don't think it would be the problem because on the previous attempt while connecting comp#1 to my friend's comp, we've put down the firewalls and it was the same problem, so I'm pretty sure the problem's not there.     I heard somewhere that it is needed to have on both computers the same account name with the same password... Is it true? If so, does it have to be all the accounts? do you have to be logged in a duplicate account? .. The 'guest' accounts are activated on both machines.. heard it could be needed too.