I need some help with my network infratructure

zulu9812

zulu9812

zulu9812

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Joined
10 Feb 2007
Posts
147
Hello,

I am currently operating the following network setup:

  • Family PC, basic model, used by everyone primarily for office work and web browsing
  • My own PC, pretty decent build, used primarily for gaming and graphic design
  • A fileserver PC, built purely to house a bunch of 1TB hard drives
  • Linksys WRT54G wireless router (about 7 years old) - not using wireless capacity, simply running cables as all PCs are in 2 adjacent rooms

I'm currently operating on bog-standard RJ-45 ports and I was wondering if I would see any real increase in performance (particularly file access to the file server pc) if I upgraded everything to gigabit?

Additionally, do I have to purchase another router, or can I hook up my existing Linksys to a Gigabit switch? Obviously, there will be a bottleneck as it won't be a true gigabit connection, but the main idea would be to maintain fast gigabit connections between the 3 PCs whilst still having a shared internet connection.

Obviously, if I were to upgrade to gigabit I would purchase gigabit adapter cards for all PCs.

Can anyone give some insights?
 
zulu9812 said:
I'm currently operating on bog-standard RJ-45 ports and I was wondering if I would see any real increase in performance (particularly file access to the file server pc) if I upgraded everything to gigabit?[/quoe]

Transfers within the network will be faster (provided your devices can transfer at some speed >100Mbps), if that's what you meant.

Additionally, do I have to purchase another router, or can I hook up my existing Linksys to a Gigabit switch?
Click to expand...

No, just a switch is plenty.

Obviously, there will be a bottleneck as it won't be a true gigabit connection
Click to expand...

The what now?
It'll be 10/100Mbps between the switch and router, but are you likely to be shifting data at a rate above 100Mbps between your machines and the internet any time soon?
Click to expand...
 
But the setup sounds fine in terms of having the gigabit switch between your machines - just need to make sure that the network cards can do more than 10/100 as well...
 
Thanks for the info. It's good that I don't need a new router, just a switch (it's cheaper!)

This is probably a stupid question, but here goes. My main gaming PC's motherboard is an Asus P5Q SE, which apparently has built-in "Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller", and my fileserver's motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-DS2H which also seemingly has built-in gigabit connectivity. The weird thing is that I run PC Wizard (a system info tool) on both PCs, and they're telling me that the LAN ports I have on both backplates are standard RJ-45 ports. Shouldn't gigabit have a new port standard?
 
zulu9812 said:
Thanks for the info. It's good that I don't need a new router, just a switch (it's cheaper!)

This is probably a stupid question, but here goes. My main gaming PC's motherboard is an Asus P5Q SE, which apparently has built-in "Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller", and my fileserver's motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-DS2H which also seemingly has built-in gigabit connectivity. The weird thing is that I run PC Wizard (a system info tool) on both PCs, and they're telling me that the LAN ports I have on both backplates are standard RJ-45 ports. Shouldn't gigabit have a new port standard?
Click to expand...

RJ-45 is just the name of the connector used. Bother gigabit ethernet and fast ethernet use the same connectors.

CAT 5e cables (which is the most likely type of cables you are using for your network) have 4 pairs of wires. When using 10Mb/s or 100Mb/s speeds you are only actully using 2 pairs of wires, 1000Mb/s which is gigabit uses all 4 pairs of wires. The connectors used are exactly the same which means going from fast ethernet to gigabit ethernet requires no change in cables or connectors (assuming the cables are CAT 5e, which is the most common).
 
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Oh, that's pretty good - so all I need is a 4-port gigabit switch. That's good, it means switching to gigabit is much cheaper than I thought it was going to be.
 
I've been thinking more about using my existing router with a new gigabit switch. If I plug my cable modem into my old Linksys router, plug the router into one port on the gigabit switch, and my 3 computers into the other ports on the switch (but not on the router), will that allow those 3 computers to share an internet connection?
 
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