Home Network Wiring - Switches, hubs, routers?

[Zeste]

In my home building saga, the framing is going to be going up in probably 2 weeks, so I need to get my shit together.

For my home network wiring, I am essentially going to be running Cat5e and Coax to every room, but with a few places having more than 1 cat5e port.

I figure in the end, my house will have probably 15~ network ports (which can be used for phones, also). I am putting 4-6 behind the TV, since I figure that each game console could use one, my slingbox, my AppleTV, and probably soon Satellite receivers. Is this the best way to do a wired network? Or could I put a switch/hub behind the TV and just have 1 cable running to the data box in the utility room? It seems like I shouldn't have to run 6 cables from the TV area to the data box, but maybe I do.

Also, in the utility room, my TV/internet will be coming in from the street, so I'll have the modem/router in there, but what do I do with my 15~ cat5e's that are all there now? Get a 16 port switch and then just plug 1 cable from the switch to the router? how does that work?

[brekk]

that depends, if you think all 6 items at your TV combined will overload a single 100mbps connection then you'll need more.

You could probably get away with a single line if its rated for Gigabit. Then just put a gigabit switch by the TV, and a gigabit router in your utility room.

[Kindnugs]

I'd run cat6 line instead, but anyways yah do what brek said with the gigabit switches.

And yes you get a big swtich to put in your utility room. Preferbly gigabit speed. Just plug in the cable from the router to the switch and you are good to go. I ussually plug that cable into the first port. Some switches are different however.

[brekk]

you dont have to do the gigabit switching gear right now. As you can upgrade to that when your bandwidth needs grow, but you do need to make sure you have the right grade of Cat-5/6 to handle gigabit.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Since cat5e cable is cheap for a 1000ft. spool I just ran multiple home runs to each wall outlet. 6 to the tv, 6 to each bedroom.

[chaos]

Originally Posted by Zeste

In my home building saga, the framing is going to be going up in probably 2 weeks, so I need to get my shit together.

For my home network wiring, I am essentially going to be running Cat5e and Coax to every room, but with a few places having more than 1 cat5e port.

I figure in the end, my house will have probably 15~ network ports (which can be used for phones, also). I am putting 4-6 behind the TV, since I figure that each game console could use one, my slingbox, my AppleTV, and probably soon Satellite receivers. Is this the best way to do a wired network? Or could I put a switch/hub behind the TV and just have 1 cable running to the data box in the utility room? It seems like I shouldn't have to run 6 cables from the TV area to the data box, but maybe I do.

Also, in the utility room, my TV/internet will be coming in from the street, so I'll have the modem/router in there, but what do I do with my 15~ cat5e's that are all there now? Get a 16 port switch and then just plug 1 cable from the switch to the router? how does that work?

Run another switch off of your main switch, have the second switch downby the tv with one cable running to it, i'd reccomend the Cisco home switches so you can tinker with spanning tree if you so desire, linksys will work just as well. Gig-e will be cost prohibitive, as will cat 6. stick with the 5e. Ideally yor setup should be as simple as possible. Never use a hub.

[Hachima]

I just run one cable to my entertainment center to hook up all my consoles. Then use this cheap $20 switch Dynex® - 5-Port 10/100 Ethernet Switch - DX-ESW5 to connect everything to and it has worked great.

No configuration needed. Just plug it in and connect the cable from the router and its gtg.

[Zeste]

The consoles won't eat a ton of bandwidth over the 100mbit, since my internet is barley 5Mb down. My slingbox I can tune to use as much as I want, the only thing that would eat a ton out at the TV is the AppleTV, since I'll have most of my videos stored at my computer, so I'll be pulling HD movies/tv shows over the network to the AppleTV, but even then if I Am watching AppleTV I won't be using much else.


So, let me get this straight:

I have a cable modem, which plugs into the WAN port on my wireless G router. Then, I plug the 16 port switch into the 1st port on my router, and then all the cables run to the switch. But also, I put a single cable out ot the TV, and plug in a 6 port switch there too. Then the Router takes care of the DHCP? Isn't the cable from the switch to the router a huge bottleneck?

[Aulirophile]

Originally Posted by Zeste

The consoles won't eat a ton of bandwidth over the 100mbit, since my internet is barley 5Mb down. My slingbox I can tune to use as much as I want, the only thing that would eat a ton out at the TV is the AppleTV, since I'll have most of my videos stored at my computer, so I'll be pulling HD movies/tv shows over the network to the AppleTV, but even then if I Am watching AppleTV I won't be using much else.


So, let me get this straight:

I have a cable modem, which plugs into the WAN port on my wireless G router. Then, I plug the 16 port switch into the 1st port on my router, and then all the cables run to the switch. But also, I put a single cable out ot the TV, and plug in a 6 port switch there too. Then the Router takes care of the DHCP? Isn't the cable from the switch to the router a huge bottleneck?

The router would handle the DHCP. Whether it is a bottleneck depends entirely on how much bandwidth the devices are using. If you really think you might use more then 100Mbit at a time (1080p is 45Mbit at most, for reference) then get a gigabit switch. I doubt you'll go over.

[Hachima]

It shouldn't matter what port you plug stuff into as far as output. Generally you should plug into the first port for input. Although it may not even matter. In my setup I have a cable modem -> Dlink wireless router -> a 5 port switch and few pcs -> another 5 port switch and a few more pcs.

The last 5 port switch goes to all my console systems. So its at the end of a chain cable modem -> router -> switch -> switch. I stream divx movies to it without any problems, download my demos relatively fast. Torrents on pcs at the end of the switch chain work great and I get my full 8Mbit download speed plus more.

[Zeste]

So would this be appropriate for my from TV center:
Linksys - 5-Port 10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit Switch - SD2005
(5 port switch 10/100/1000)




And then run that 5 port switch to this:Linksys - 16-Port 10/100 Ethernet Switch - SD216
in the data box, and then just plug that into the router, which then plugs into the cable modem?

[Ashes Emberblade]

Most of that stuff is "intelligent" and will figure itself out. Just make sure you only have one dhcp server running (on the router, so disable the one on the cable modem if any.)

The switches will sort each other out automatically.

[Hachima]

Yeah, thats the right idea. The only problem is that the 16 port switch doesn't supports 1000Mbps. So anything on the 5 port switch isn't going to be able to take advantage of it, if a device has to communicate with something not directly connected to the 5 port switch.

Not sure exactly where you are building but If you don't already have the basic cables Welcome To EBC Computers - The Best Prices on Desktops, Notebooks, Parts and Accessories has a lot better prices than BestBuy or whatever for cables.

[MrGraham]

Why do you need a router? Just plug the switch up to the cable modem?

[Hachima]

Because a switch doesn't have NAT/DHCP support and the cable company only gives you one IP address.