Query about Gigabit Switches, and where to buy

TheDoc

Hi guys, felt the need to come to the gurus on this one

I currently have the following setup. Router in living room connected to a few bits and an ethernet cable that goes to my PC room.

I'm moving my Xbox into the Pc room, and picking up a PS3 today. I don't want to operate over WIFI for obvious reasons. I'm a bit hamstrung for ethernet ports on the router, so was told I should look into a switch.

The premise looks decent, but I just want to check the functionality.

In theory, I would bring the switch into the PC room. Plug the ethernet cable into it, and then run more ethernets from that into Xbox, PS3 and my PC. Can anyone confirm this is possible without any negative impact?

And finally, stupid question, where can I get a a Gigabit switch in Dublin walk in store. I had a look in PCWorld ( why I waste my time in there I'll never know) but they wanted €80 for something on Amazon for €20

Would be eager to get it today, in a walk in shop, but if I'd be paying over the odds, I'd be fine holding off with Amazon

lotas

First, your theory of sticking the switch in the sitting room with the router and running cables from there to upstairs will work. should not be a problem. If, however, you have more gear upstairs, i would suggest a single cable from the modem to upstairs and stick the switch there.

If you only need 10/100Mb/s connections, checkout Peats (http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog_v3.cgi?id=593&type=subcat). They have a mini 5 port switch (http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog_v2.cgi?id=32641&type=product) for a tenner in stock ATM. If you need Gigabit, there are 5 and 8 port switches for less than 40 quid...

lotas

I re-read the question, and you are suggesting what i was suggesting... single cable from the modem to the PC room and and switch in there... I should read these things less quickly...

TheDoc

lotas wrote: »

First, your theory of sticking the switch in the sitting room with the router and running cables from there to upstairs will work. should not be a problem. If, however, you have more gear upstairs, i would suggest a single cable from the modem to upstairs and stick the switch there.

If you only need 10/100Mb/s connections, checkout Peats (http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog_v3.cgi?id=593&type=subcat). They have a mini 5 port switch (http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog_v2.cgi?id=32641&type=product) for a tenner in stock ATM. If you need Gigabit, there are 5 and 8 port switches for less than 40 quid...

It's for Xbox and PS3 and my PC, so I just assumed Gigabit was the win

Clover

Planning on doing something similar myself , so I ordered this switch along with my new pc parts.

TheDoc

Clover wrote: »

Planning on doing something similar myself , so I ordered this switch along with my new pc parts.

The exact one I was looking at on Amazon to be honest

gctest50

Clover wrote: »

Planning on doing something similar myself , so I ordered this switch along with my new pc parts.

Pick up an 8-port one if you can, you wouldn't be long finding things to plug into it


.

BigEejit

I have two of those tp link switches (both 8 port) and found that their green ethernet might cause problems. I moved house and before putting cables under the floor permanently I decided to test the cables. The first two cables I tested were both cat6 and terminated, one was ftp the other utp and neither would run at 1gb from a pc through these switches to my broadband router. I was sure I had duff cables but decided to test direct connected to my Linksys router and it ran at gigabit no bother (i.e. the only thing different was the tp link was missing). I brought the two cables to work and tested properly with a fluke cable tester and my cables could run happily at 1gb and auto-negotiated to 10gb when we plugged it into a proper enterprise switch.
So then I looked at the tp-link and they have a 'low power consumption design" and basically it is supposed to tune the power so that it only provides the minimum required for the link. It probably works fine on short cables but on longer cable runs, mine were all 30 meters, it did not have the power (or did not provide the power) to run at gigabit!!

Clover

Well the switch arrived today and was very simple to get up and running , ran a 10 meter cable from the router to the switch / 3 meter cable from switch to pc and plugged it in.

Getting the full 1.0 Gbps on the pc , don't have a longer cable to test how it holds up on the longer cable runs to see if it would struggle like BigEejit said.

Stainless_Steel

Clover wrote: »

Well the switch arrived today and was very simple to get up and running , ran a 10 meter cable from the router to the switch / 3 meter cable from switch to pc and plugged it in.

Getting the full 1.0 Gbps on the pc , don't have a longer cable to test how it holds up on the longer cable runs to see if it would struggle like BigEejit said.

When you say you are getting full 1 Gbps on the PC, how do you verify this?

The only way is to do a throughput test to something that is connected to the router. If you are only going by what task manager says then it will ony report the link speed to the local switch.

Not that it matters by the way...just thought it might be some useful knowledge for you.

SS

Clover

Stainless_Steel wrote: »

If you are only going by what task manager says then it will ony report the link speed to the local switch.
SS

That's what I was going by alright.