OK, that answers it.

It was just a thought anyway.
Looks like the two way of doing it wil be to have the router inline and 'on'
7/24 or just hookup the router when I need it.
Thanks for all the info.

L.

"John" wrote in message news:eelJlXR4IHA.2580@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>
> "L.S." wrote in message
> news:eVt85SQ4IHA.4800@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Thanks.
>>
>> The 'typical setup' is how we're running at work but still wondering if I
>> can hook the hardware up so I don't have the router powered on all the
>> time, just when I need it.
>
> Rewire the connection. It's not that hard.
>
>> The cable modem has two outputs in back, cat5 and usb. Can I hook my
>> desktop to the usb(my desktop has an on-board lan card) and the router to
>> the cat5(to run my laptop when needed)?
>
> Yes you can hook them up as described above. Will it work simultaneously?
> No.
>
>> Is there such a thing as a cat5 splitter? One leg running to my desktop
>> and the other running to the router.
>
> Let's assume there is a CAT5 "splitter". Here's the problem:
> Your cable modem can only assign 1 public IP address to 1 device (either a
> PC or a router connected to it). How is it going to assign multiple
> (public) IP addresses to multiple devices (a PC and a router)?
>