[TGilb2007]

Yea.....your not gonna be able to split cat-5....it needs all 8 wires for proper communicate, or else everything is gonna fxxxed. Honestly, you do need a router in there somewhere, or else ur not getting internet. The firewall should have nothing to do with the network bogging down. Try to see if you can PING the router as well. To do that, here are some instructions (since I dont know ur computer/networking backgrounds)

Assuming you use Windows 2K or XP

1. Click Start
2. Run
3. In run, type in CMD, hit enter button
4. In black and white command prompt, type in IPCONFIG
5. There will be an address for default gateway
6. Type PING (address for default gateway)

Look for the stastics, should be somewhere in the 1ms-3ms range. If its higher then that, check to make sure the roommate isnt downloading a lot, and also run virus scans on both machines, since many viruses are designed to run various attacks to other networks from yours.


If all else fails, get a newer router. I prefer D-Link myself.