Hi all, I don't know too much about networks, and want to mine the bit-tech hive mind before I start tinkering with the wiring in my soon to be built home. Currently I'm using a Belkin N1 Vision router, but may swap this for a Virgin or Sky one depending on what package I get. To this I would like to connect the following by cat5e: -PC (upstairs) -Plasma TV (living room) -AV Receiver (living room, not yet bought, but I'm looking at the Sony STR-DH810 or similar) -Wii (its for the missus!) -Bluray player -Synology DS211J or similar (not yet bought, but buying on bit forum recommendation ) So I have two questions: 1. Can I plug all the downstairs stuff into an ethernet hub, and plug the hub into the router? If so, does this affect speed or risk my belkin doing a self-DoS-bellyflip? And which hub am I best going for? 2. Is it possible to put faceplates on the wall, and have the wires terminate there, rather than emerging from the skirting board and straight into the av equipment? If so, easy to do? How to do? Thanks in advance
1. The hub you refer to is usually called a switch, any switch will do but you may as well future proof yourself a little. Get a gigabit switch and use Cat6 cable. Costs pennies more than Cat5e and is rated to run at gigabit all day long. Personally, I use a netgear one. A switch is basically a dumb device, it just makes one port into 4/8/12 or however many you need. a Hub/Router tends to be a 'clever' device, it can also share/extend wireless or use DHCP. 2. Yes you can, pretty easy to do as well and suprisingly cheap. Heres a simple step by step guide: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.long007/wallsocket.htm Its pretty simple, but a little time consuming and definately worth it in the long run. Also... I have the 210j.... awesome bit of kit
a switch is cleverer than hub, but not as clever as a router, a switch sends the requested information, to the correct port on the switch, as apposed to a hub, which sends the information to all ports. and as tarker said, yes it is fairly easy perfomance wise, you probebly wouldn't notice, unless everything on your network, was doing a lot of stuff at the same time
Cool, most of the things on the network wont be doing much at the same time, its mainly because I want to put all the cables in trunking to make it neat, so don't want to keep swapping a single cable between components. Thanks for link tarka (of the Vindaloovians?). So either a switch or hub would be fine for said use? Does the hub send to every port, but all except the intended port don't understand it and so ignore it?
don't buy a hub, buy a switch hubs send information to every port switches send information only to the port that requested it
Possibly the first person to get that first time But yeah, a switch would be best for this, and spend the extra pennies on Cat6 and gigabit equipment everywhere, makes sense for the long haul.
i'd do a 8-10 port gigabit switch, so you have a few extra in case you need to expand. the netgears are fine, the ones in the metal enclosure that look like rack mount. trendnet green switchs are fairly good as well. if you want something a little nicer you could step up to a manged switch like the hp procurve. i'd set it up somewhere close to your main dsl jack and wire it all into a closet or cabinet to have it out of sight, pull all cat6 into wall jacks.
Just an after thought... make sure you use cat6 in drums rather than buying a bunch of 20m-50m cables or whatever and cutting them up, usually can be bought for cheap from screwfix or somewhere similar, means less wastage too.
8-port hp procurve for around £45, I was expecting quite a lot more cost than that Thanks for all the advice, will run it by the missus (wish me luck).
thats a very good price on a procurve. you really can't go wrong getting it for that price at all. even the netgear unmanaged are usually close to that.
Save money, use Cat5e. Cat6 has lower signal loss and is rated for a higher frequency than Cat5e...but unless you get faulty cabling, Cat5e will handle Gigabit connection speeds all day long. Heck, I max my network out at 120MB/sec regularly over the Cat5e I have laid. Cat6 can in theory handle a bit more interferance, but that shouldn't be a big issue unless you run large trunks (IE bundling a dozen or more cables together that all see lots of traffic), run trunks by a lot of mains wiring (I mean A LOT of mains wiring, not just a power line or two), have a really bad EM environment or run it through plenums (IE your house HVAC duct work). In the later case you can get plenum rated Cat5e, which is better than Cat6 for that work. Also you can get STP instead of UTP wiring. Cat6 is NOT 10GbE rated. You could maybe run the equivelent of 4GbE over it. If you want something truely future proof you neet Cat6a which is a lot more expensive than Cat6. In US dollars 500ft of Cat5e is about $55. Cat6 is about $85. Cat6a is about $120-140. Cat7, which doesn't really exist, but manufactures claim, is about the equivelent of Cat6a and seems to run in the range of $140-200 for 500ft (Cat6 augmented if you want to know what the A stands for, similar to Cat5e, which is for Enhanced). Just go Cat5e. As Tarka mentioned, get bulk cable and make your own. Its not that expensive. I got 500ft of Cat5e, a crimper and connectors all for about $100. Trendnet makes an awesome crimper. Use one piece connectors. You can probably get away with 250ft of cable unless you have a large house that you are wiring (I have more than half of my 500ft left and I made 3 really, really long runs to room as well as half a dozen short cables. I do plan on a couple more runs to rooms where nothing is network capable right now...but will be in the future).
Just a side note, if you get a router with virgin and it is the D-link DIR615, you will have yourself a 'meh' router, which is made terrible by Virgin's firmware. BUT! Do not fear, DD-WRT turns it into an awesome router. After flashing DD-WRT my router has been up for *goes to check* 74 days without skipping a beat. I can now be on skype and game while my brother does a spot of light (probably illegal) torrenting without any noticeable lack of slowdown.
Still undecided on service provider, ofcom reckon virgin is most often nearest its advertised speed, will do some asking once the line is in place. We can't get any fibre services though (apparently only the south is worth this )
I recently upgraded my VM service from 20Mb to 30Mb using their 'superhub'. I run a speed test on it every so often, and I've yet to get a speed below 29Mb. Just run a test, middle of the day. 29.3Mb. The only problem I had setting it up was the fact that it wouldn't allow my normal 16 digit password, it only went up to 11 digits
I command this thread to rise anew for one final question. Does anyone know if terminating my own cat6 cables in wall sockets is the same as cat5e? Is there any added consideration needed for the metal sheath eg not crimping it into the actual wires and shorting them out? Also, fleebay has some very cheap cat6 UTP cables, but isnt this a contradiction in terms?
Just don't touch the metal sheath to the wires and its the same as Cat5. How cheap are we talking...?
Not sure if this one would be long enough, but something like this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/40M-Gigabit-C...uting_NetworkingCables_RL&hash=item41531183dd Doesn't Cat6 have to be shielded to be called Cat6?
no cat 6 comes in the same formats as cat5, both ftp and utp, (foiled twisted pair and unshielded twisted pair)
So what makes cat 6 able to carry gigabit over longer distances than cat5, if both can be shielded and twisted?
quality of cable, cat6 is heavier guage than cat5 (23 guage instead of 24) look here it explains cat6 and cat5 quite well
