Questions: Setting Up Network Switches/Routers

[racketboy]

So I'm having the big room in my basement torn up a bit (the previous owners had the walls and ceilings finished) to install some new electrical wiring, lighting, etc.

While things are being torn up, I thought it might be a good idea to have some networking put in as well.

This is the room where my new home theater setup will be, so I'm thinking it might be good to have like for ethernet cables running in the wall there and then some going to my office and maybe to my living room upstairs (directly above)

I also have a Wireless router already, but only 4 ethernet ports.

So I guess my main question is, would it work to get like a 8 port gigabit switch to have these cables going to and have the wireless router hooked up to the switch as well?

Anything I need to consider?

[nova1313]

If the walls are open run at least 1 cable down from the router to the room somewhere. Make sure it will support 1gb speeds. In most cases your standard home router won't support 1gb right now, but in the future they all should. (Disclaimer: some home routers do support it such as trendnets, but not many).

-Do run more than one jack
-Don't build a network switch into the wall (don't ask I've seen it done...)
-Do buy a switch with autosensing 1gb/s ports. Plug that in downstairs and all your game consoles should just work. If it's not autosensing it needs to have an "uplink" port. If it has an uplink port and is not autosensing, you will need the cable in the wall to be cross-over. Save yourself the hassle, run normal cabling in the wall and buy an auto sensing switch.

Option 2:
- Leave your wireless router where it is
- Run no cables
- Buy a wireless bridge (sometimes just called an access point with bridge mode)
- Buy an auto-sensing switch
- Plug bridge into switch (after it is configured)
- Call it a day.

The bridge will make the router think it is directly connected to the wireless router. This is the setup I have in my apartment as I can't exactly run cable through the walls. It works well as the only traffic that goes over the wireless link is to the internet. Despite the wireless link being slow, it is still faster than my internet connection so I don't notice the difference. It does however increase lag, so for online games this solution might be unusable. I only play Starcraft from my PC over it. My consoles are plugged right into the router.

Any other questions just ask. I did my thesis for college on network routing algorithms and subsequently had to learn a ton about the hardware. I'd be happy to answer anything for you.

I highly suggest trendnet routers, switches and wireless access points. I recently got them for my apartment and it has been such a breeze to configure them all.

[racketboy]

I've set up a wireless bridge and I wasn't a big fan.
Also worth mentioning I'm also planning on getting a network-attached HD TV tuner and a Windows Home Server that will hold most of my storage for archived video and such.

Unless I missed it, I don't think you touched on the though of having the wireless routers attached to the switch. They wouldn't be far apart, so I think having a wireless bridge is a bit overkill anyway.

[MrPopo]

When I was in college the house we lived in was fully wired. The setup was the cable modem fed into the wireless router, and the router fed into the switch (I might have the position of the router and switch mixed up). Then we fed the ports on the switch and the router to all the ports in the house.

[racketboy]

When I was in college the house we lived in was fully wired. The setup was the cable modem fed into the wireless router, and the router fed into the switch (I might have the position of the router and switch mixed up). Then we fed the ports on the switch and the router to all the ports in the house.

I may be wrong, but I don't think having the cable modem plugged into the switch instead of the router, so I'm guessing your first instinct is right (?)

[Hobie-wan]

A switch simply lets you connect things of different speeds so they can talk to each other. The router is like a switch, but usually doles out IP addresses if you haven't set them to static and handles internet connection sharing with a firewall. So the router needs to be hooked to the modem and anything else, whether its a switch or a device, plugs into the router.

[racketboy]

A switch simply lets you connect things of different speeds so they can talk to each other. The router is like a switch, but usually doles out IP addresses if you haven't set them to static and handles internet connection sharing with a firewall. So the router needs to be hooked to the modem and anything else, whether its a switch or a device, plugs into the router.

Ah ok -- that does make sense.
So everything plug into the switch, including the wireless router?

[Hobie-wan]

You want:

Modem ---> Router ---> Switch

Hooking devices up to the router or the switch is fine. If your internet comes in upstairs, I'd say put the router there, then a cable in the wall that goes to the basement and put the switch there for any gaming stuff that's not going to have wireless.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

I say stream all of your digital content through the existing electrical plugs and coax jacks for a seamless look that is pretty cool to see in action.

I have no idea how much it usually costs to do this though, but I have seen it done in a few places before.

[Hatta]

If you're going to be running cables anyway, spend a little more and run conduit. You'll be glad you did in 10 years when you need fiber optics or whatever for terabit ethernet.