switches, hubs, bridges...Help

sm100378

sm100378

New Member
Hi,

Okay, so I have my new build on the second floor with a WMP54g wireless adapter and in the basement I have the cable modem / wireless router wrt54g connected to another desktop. I also use a wireless laptop throughout the house when necessary. Being that my wmp54g keeps disconnecting/reconnecting itself to my home network in WPA, I think I am going to need to run a network cable from the basement to the second floor. The advantage her is that the room in the second floor has a laundry shoot, so I can simply run the cable down that all the floors, and it will then reach the laundry room, which is next to the room of the cable modem/wireless router. I plan on creating wall outlets with this project.

My question: After researching, I am confused with the main differences of switches, hubs, routers, and access points. I know that a hub splits the cable connection and a switch keeps the connection at 100% (hope this makes sense), but what are the others for? Which one would be my best use with what I want to do, which is I dont think I want to use the wireless router as the hub for the connection to do the connection being shared and "weakened", rather than with a switch.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

P.S. I am thinking a setup with the wireless router and the (swtich, bridge, access poin, and hub?)


Bracket on wall:

______wireless router on top________
|_AcessPoint/Hub/Bridge/switch on bottom_|

* * * *
WIRES LEADING TO BOTH DESKTOPS AND AN INPUT
WIRE COMING IN FROM EXTERIOR OF HOUSE
 
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I'm too tired to really help with your problem, but I do know my equipment. Switches and hubs are basically the same. They do the same thing, but a switch is faster and more efficient. A router basically connects two networks. In the case of most consumer models, your LAN and the WAN(internet). An access point is basically just the wireless portion of a wireless router. No built in switch and limited routing features. As for a bridge...I can't remember right off so I'm going to leave that up to you.

Again, I didn't totally read your post, but whatever your problem was, you really only need one router. That should be enough to control everything. Just connect the network to a switch and go from there, it should all work just fine.
 
I am wondering if it matters by staying with the same brand throughout (Linksys) or if I were for some reason buy a switch and/or an access point of another brand, is this going to cause problems of any kind? Are their problems adding other brands to existing brands in the network?


Thanks!
 
A switch is a switch...and so on. The ONLY time it might really matter is if you have some special features. For example, my Dlink access point allows for 22Mbps connections ONLY IF you also have a Dlink wifi card(a special one at that) Otherwise, it really shouldn't make a difference. They all have standards to follow...
 
Thank you for the great input.

I have just one more question with this.

I have TW Road Runner and get 5mbps with my desktop connected to the cablemodem/router. I noticed that there are switches for 10/100, 10/100/1000, and 10/20/100/200, and so on.

With my scenario, do I just want an inexpensive switch that might cater to 10/100 or what is my best choice, bieng that this is a network in a house.


Thank you again.
 
I've yet to see a modem with anything higher than a 10Mbps connector on it. Having your whole network run at 10Mbps would probably work just as well as any other speed UNTIL you tried to do something say between computers.

10/100 is probably the most cost effective method right now seeing as just about every computer has at least a 100Mbps NIC in them, and the same goes for the networking equipment.
 
I'm a little confused with your statement "UNTIL you tried to do something say between computers."

Are you saying I can speed up my connection extremely fast another way?






The_Other_One said:
I've yet to see a modem with anything higher than a 10Mbps connector on it. Having your whole network run at 10Mbps would probably work just as well as any other speed UNTIL you tried to do something say between computers.

10/100 is probably the most cost effective method right now seeing as just about every computer has at least a 100Mbps NIC in them, and the same goes for the networking equipment.
Click to expand...
 
I never said you could speed up your connection. Modems run at 10Mbps, so there'd be no difference in internet performace between a network running at 10Mbps, 100Mbps, 1000Mbps, etc. There WOULD be a difference accessing files between computers.
 
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