Quick Question

Cmar-Ireland

Hi

I have BT 3mb BB with a Zyxel 623 router. It is connected to a 4 port hub to split to the two PC's in the house.
It works great 90% of the time, but occasionally it seems to stall on webpages for a few seconds. No light activity on the router. Then it just starts flashing again and works normally.

I was wondering if I can change to a router that has the at least two sockets for both PC's and that may solve the stall problem.

I was looking at some on ebay, but am not sure what to get! I was advised that Netgear and Linksys are very good.

If I get one of these, can I just plug the phoneline into it and then connect to the two pc's?

Any recommendations?

Thanks
Ciaran

fintan.moloney

I'd say part of the problem there is that you are using a hub which leads of a lot of packets colliding and sometimes being lost, packets that collide have to be re sent and therefore this could be the hold up you are experiencing. Ideally you should go for a Router/Modem with built in 4 port switch, they are relatively cheap these days. Linksys will do the job, US robotics are better build quality but more expensive .... Netgear are around the same as Linksys. You could also keep your existing router and buy a 4 port switch and try that, they go for as little as €20 on Komplett.

Cmar-Ireland

Thanks Fintan,

Whats the difference between the 4 port hub and the 4 port switch? Both pc are used at the same time btw...

fintan.moloney wrote:

I'd say part of the problem there is that you are using a hub which leads of a lot of packets colliding and sometimes being lost, packets that collide have to be re sent and therefore this could be the hold up you are experiencing. Ideally you should go for a Router/Modem with built in 4 port switch, they are relatively cheap these days. Linksys will do the job, US robotics are better build quality but more expensive .... Netgear are around the same as Linksys. You could also keep your existing router and buy a 4 port switch and try that, they go for as little as €20 on Komplett.

fintan.moloney

Basically when a packet reaches a hub it sends it out on all ports not just the PC that it was meant for so therefore there is a lot of extra traffic, a switch is a bit more intelligent (hence why most modern routers have a switch built in) - it learns where the packets are going and it only sends packets to the port that requires them, i.e. it knows PC 1 (e.g. 192.168.1.1) is on port 1 so traffic for 192.168.1.1 only goes to port 1 rather than being sent to them all at once which would slow things down. Another point is that a hub divides bandwith between ports so a 100MB/s hub which has 4 ports divides that bandwith whereas a switch gives full speed to all ports.

Cmar-Ireland

Forgive the question, but how do I know if its a regular hub or a switch?

Also, can anyone recommend a modem/router to suit my application?

Thanks!

bishopLEN

Cmar-Ireland wrote:

Forgive the question, but how do I know if its a regular hub or a switch?

Also, can anyone recommend a modem/router to suit my application?

Thanks!

Sorry about this air fairy comment,
An intellegent swich that fintan mentioned is far more expensive than a hub. It has to look at the header of the packet data to figure out what IP the packet is going to. A hub is like a repeater and doesn't care about such information.
The switch has alot more circuitry that the hub.

dub45

Cmar-Ireland wrote:

Forgive the question, but how do I know if its a regular hub or a switch?

Also, can anyone recommend a modem/router to suit my application?

Thanks!

Have a look at www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk for lots of reviews of models and as suggestions the linksys wag 354g - http://www-ie.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=IE%2FLayout&cid=1138744840057&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper or the netgear dg834g if you want wireless http://www.netgear.co.uk/extra/h_wirelessrouter_dg834g.php- or without wireless the netgear dg834 http://www.netgear.co.uk/wired_broadband_router_dg834.php

fintan.moloney

Well yeah a managed switch for sure will cost a fair bit more but even a standard switch (which are very cheap these days) will deal with data a lot more efficiently than a hub. In fact most places only sell 4 port switches, these days its quite hard to buy a 4 port hub (not that you would want to !)
Hubs are evil :mad: hehe

Cmar-Ireland

Ok, I've just checked my hub, only to discover that it is a Netgear FS605 v2 5 way switch.
So this should already sort data automatically then?

The cable from the phone socket has a regular phone type plug on the end going into the zyxel router. So how do I use something like the DG834?

Sorry if these are dumb q's!!!

fintan.moloney

You use this by just putting the phone line connection into the relevant socket on the unit and then just connect you computers to the Ethernet ports on the back of it...to connect to your broadband provider you will need to fill in all the relevant information into the router (this info can be found on their website usually) - you fill all this in on the router by connecting the router to your pc (via Ethernet) and connecting to it following the instructions that come with it - this usually just involves connecting to an address such as http://home http://192.168.1.254 or something similar.