Network solution for 6 person student house

Boozebeard

Boozebeard

Boozebeard

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In a house with 5 other students, we have a 50meg virgin line. Every bedroom has an ethernet port as well as the living room (7 in total) as well as countless wireless devices; on average there are about 10 devices connected at a time.

At the moment we are using the Virgin super hub, with a D-link DR 615 in access point mode connected to it in order to provide enough lan ports. We have disabled the wireless on the super hub and are using the DIR 615 for wireless (had better signal quality).

It's working ok except for gaming can get laggy. Unfortunately the super hub has no Quality of Service Engine. I was thinking it might be worth buying a new router that will be more capable of managing such a large home network.

What would you recommend for a setup like this? can you get routers with 7+ lan ports or will we still need a second access point? If so should we keep using the DIR 615 or would we be better off buying a dedicated switch? Would this cause problems with a QoS engine?

Sorry for the wall of text.
 
Can you not put the Super hub in modem mode, and then use the DIR-615 for routing, wireless, QoS etc...?
To have more Ethernet ports, just buy a cheap switch, and connect it to the DIR-615.
 
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Yes, could do that if it's not worth getting a more expensive model. I wasn't sure how well it would handle so many connections, thought something else might be a bit better.
 
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Boozebeard said:
Any reason not to buy the oc value switch?
Click to expand...

You're looking for a wireless router, which can support around 10 concurrent connections, with QoS support, right? If so, then you should be looking for something solid, such as the products on that link I posted.

If you're only looking for something to give you more ethernet ports, then just buy a cheap switch, it shouldn't make much difference.
 
If you want to get something that will cope very well but want it to be a switch then get a Procurve (HP). You could probably get an 8 port 1410-8G unmanaged switch for around 50 quid (at a guess, thats what it costs here at any rate) or i you wanted to go full throttle then a 1810-8G managed switch where you can sort out link bonding, VLans, QoS etc. You will have to spend a bit though. My 1810-24G was around 250 quid but with a lifetime guarantee I am unlikely to be upgrading for a long time.

Put it between the 615 and the internet router. Use the 615 only for wireless clients. Everything else hard wired in to the Procurve.

RB
 
RimBlock said:
If you want to get something that will cope very well but want it to be a switch then get a Procurve (HP). You could probably get an 8 port 1410-8G unmanaged switch for around 50 quid (at a guess, thats what it costs here at any rate) or i you wanted to go full throttle then a 1810-8G managed switch where you can sort out link bonding, VLans, QoS etc. You will have to spend a bit though. My 1810-24G was around 250 quid but with a lifetime guarantee I am unlikely to be upgrading for a long time.

Put it between the 615 and the internet router. Use the 615 only for wireless clients. Everything else hard wired in to the Procurve.

RB
Click to expand...

So the switch would work as a router too? What exactly is the difference between one of those switches and a router then? Other than wireless?
 
Boozebeard said:
So the switch would work as a router too? What exactly is the difference between one of those switches and a router then? Other than wireless?
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Nope,

The superhub would be the router again, the dir-615 would be a wireless access point and the 1810-8G would act as a QoS manager. This means that the switch would hand the packets in the defined QoS order to the internet router which would just route them to the internet and the responses back to the switch which would QoS them and send them off to their destinations. The 1810-24G has a fair bit of control over QoS and has the hardware to properly manage it. The 1410-8G can also do it but you will not have access to fine tune. A cheap router / switch may be able to do the QoS for you but may not have the hardware to backup what it is trying to do in the most efficient manner. You get what you pay for really. Want something that will do as good as you are likely to get then an 1810-8G, want something very good but a bit more hands off then the 1410-8G, want something cheap but which may well under-perform (compared to the Procurves) and will most likely not last as long then get something off the shelf at the local electronics place. I have a Linksys for wireless connectivity, a Procurve for connecting everything in one place and control and my ISP router. i can stream HD Bluray ISOs, bittorrent and play locally hosted games (have a home Minecraft server running) with no real detrimental effect. As long as there is not a standards jump (100MBit -> 1GBit) then the procurve will just sit there and run for years.

RB
 
I'm also very interested (and frustrated!) with this. I share a very large property with 7 other lodgers, all with Ethernet connections, and I suffer a lot of ping jittering and spiking whenever anyone else (as far as I can tell) streams or Torrents. I have put up courtesy notes asking people to only torrent from 6pm-9pm etc.etc. but obviously doing things the polite way only gets you so far; people will still torrent and think they can get away with it without anyone noticing! I'm a big PC gamer though and obviously 'notice' it a lot when my games become unplayable! It's hard to 'educate' ordinary Internet users on how and why torrenting is extremely selfish and detrimental for everyone else...

Though we are only on the Virgin media 30Mb package at the moment. From your experience, do you think upgrading to the 100Mb package would increase performance for me? I'm thinking w/r/t television streaming services (e.g. iPlayer) and general http downloading that just soaks up ordinary bandwidth. I'm aware that torrents cause a separate headache by flooding ports and upstream connections. Just want to save as much money as possible, really, because I know that the other lodgers probably will not want to stump up the cash for a top-end router (as they will likely not see or know of any benefit). QoS is very sorely lacking on the so-called 'Superhub'!
 
Why not invest in a good router, and then use VLANS to separate the bandwidth huggers, from the gamers, and then use QoS.

So, VLAN1 - Gamers, QoS - Highest Priority.
VLAN2 - Bandwidth Huggers, QoS - Lowest Priority.

Or you could monitor the bandwidth usage of the devices connecting, identify the devices causing the lag, and then set their QoS to the lowest. OR, just set yourself as the highest priority.
 
Well for a VLAN + QoS solution, it won't be cheap, probably looking at £200+. I'd say just buy a WNR2000v2 (I use this), and just set all of the gamers' mac addresses as the highest priorities on the network. You could also look through the logs and see who has a load of connections to and from them (probably the torrenters), and you could then set their priority to the lowest.

Alternatively, you could highlight the legalities of illegally downloading torrents, and then tell them if it doesn't stop, they'll be blocked from accessing the network (can be achieved through service restrictions).

Or... you could block all ports and only allow those that you need/want, 80, 443 and the ports your game use etc.
 
Yeah, not looking for a business-level solution, really... just something where I can prioritise 1-2 MAC addresses above all the others when it comes to gaming and ping-sensitive applications!

(Also sorry for thread hijacking - I hope this continues in your interest!)
 
As recommended previously, take a look at the HP V1810-8G also known as model:J9449A (google for specs and sellers). 8 ports web managed with VLan etc. Found one place selling for under 115 quid and in stock.

Make sure it is the GBit version as there was a 10/100 version as well. The one I saw stated it was. Obviously cannot say who was selling but google and working through the links should find them.

RB
 
Cheers. Have just dug up a Dlink-615 from under the stairs that has basic QoS, will flash it with dd-wrt and see if that makes any difference in the short term. Have noted down that above router in case we need a more effective solution.
 
QoS won't be much good to be honest as it's usually the ISP's end that is causing the problem.
 
dLockers said:
QoS won't be much good to be honest as it's usually the ISP's end that is causing the problem.
Click to expand...

Have you read the thread? Of course, if the ISP is crap QoS wont make the slightest difference, but if like me you have a good connection then QoS allows you to get the most out of it regardless of what others are doing however you're only as good as you're rules.

If you give one MAC P1 rating and then they torrent you may aswell not bother.

Therefore I think you need to do a QoS policy but also block outbound ports and only open what is really needed (this is easier for some games... YMMV).
 
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