Home network question

Mailman86 · 11 Jan 2007 at 22:24

I currently live in a student house with five other people. Everyone at the moment connects to the Internet through a BT Home Hub wirelessly. Someone also has an extra computer plugged straight in to the Home Hub using an Ethernet cable.

Now because I get a quite shocking wireless signal from my computer to the home hub (my room is at the top of the stairs with the home hub being in the room at the bottom!) I plan to set up a wired connection to my room. Now I also use my Xbox 360 now and again so was hoping I could make use of this hub I have so I wouldn't need to swap cables around when I wanted to use one or the other.

So basically there will be a long Ethernet cable going in the remaining port on the BT Home Hub to my room. This cable would then plug in to the hub. Another cable will then run from my PC to the hub and another from my Xbox 360 to the hub.

I'm pretty sure this should work, but I just wanted to make sure before I get the extra Ethernet cables sorted. Note that I got the hub for free so I really don't want to have to fork out for a switch. So would this be ok?

Also if this is ok there is a switch on the hub which is labeled normal/uplink. From what I can find out on my own am I right in thinking that the port attached to this switch is the one where the cable from the router goes and the uplink switch needs to be depressed (uplink mode on)?

BigBoy · 12 Jan 2007 at 20:08

Yes should work fine. one thing though unless you have a Phat net connection is anyone is downloading or you are all on line surfing at the same time then the 360's connection to the net will be a bit poo.

crashuk · 13 Jan 2007 at 01:29

you can assign bandwith on some routers not to sure about bt home hub.

Mailman86 · 15 Jan 2007 at 14:45

BigBoy said:
Yes should work fine. one thing though unless you have a Phat net connection is anyone is downloading or you are all on line surfing at the same time then the 360's connection to the net will be a bit poo.

I haven't had a chance to test the setup yet, but it's good to know that it should work!

I don't really get the chance to play online much anyway but it is handy to have it connected to the Internet for the Marketplace and Xbox Live Arcade, so bandwidth isn't as much of an issue.

crashuk said:
you can assign bandwith on some routers not to sure about bt home hub.

I have not really looked at the admin page for the home hub much, but I was ok last term with regard to bandwidth, so I will probably not bother if there is a such a feature.

MAllen · 15 Jan 2007 at 15:02

Home hub - no bandwidth limitation in there. In fact, very little in there that a decent router would give ya.

In theory, you should just be able to connect your Ethernet Hub to the Home Hub using the Uplink port.

BUT... beware... there is something funny with them Home Hubs. When I tried to do exactly what you are attempting, I had a nightmare of a time with a cheapo 100-base dumb ethernet hub. The BT box just didn't like it.... and there is no logical reason for that.

At the time it was at a customer site, so I just found an alternate way of doing things instead of trouble shooting my dumb hub.... so it could just of been a dud cable.

In your setup... you are going to need to make sure all of your Ethernet cables are "straight". No "Cross-Overs".

You then use the "Uplink" switch when connecting the Ethernet Hub to the Home Hub.

Mailman86 · 15 Jan 2007 at 17:59

MAllen said:
Home hub - no bandwidth limitation in there. In fact, very little in there that a decent router would give ya.

In theory, you should just be able to connect your Ethernet Hub to the Home Hub using the Uplink port.

BUT... beware... there is something funny with them Home Hubs. When I tried to do exactly what you are attempting, I had a nightmare of a time with a cheapo 100-base dumb ethernet hub. The BT box just didn't like it.... and there is no logical reason for that.

At the time it was at a customer site, so I just found an alternate way of doing things instead of trouble shooting my dumb hub.... so it could just of been a dud cable.

In your setup... you are going to need to make sure all of your Ethernet cables are "straight". No "Cross-Overs".

You then use the "Uplink" switch when connecting the Ethernet Hub to the Home Hub.

I connected it all up about two hours ago and all works fine! I forgot to put the cable coming from the BT Home Hub in to the uplink port first though, but everything still worked fine anyway.