LAN splitter/switch

RichardD1970

My son has a wired internet connection to his PC in his room, he is getting a PS4 with his Christmas money and would like a wired connection to this also.

We have no spare ports on our Virgin Super Hub and I don't really want to have to route another wire through the house anyway.

Is this the right sort of thing to use in his room to allow him to connect both devices to the one wire that runs to his room.

(hope this makes sense, still feeling effects of yesterday :rotfl:)

Fightsback

Yes that is the correct sort of thing however invest in a Gigabit switch as it's 10x the potential data transmission rate for barely more money so it will be more future proof.

John_Gray

I agree with the sentiment about a Gigabit switch, but "barely more money" than the £6.12 for the TP-LINK TL-SF1005D 5-Port 10/100Mbps Unmanaged Desktop Switch isn't borne out by an Amazon search for "5-port gigabit ethernet switch", where the cheapest is over £12...

S0litaire

Take a quick look on amazon. thy have a few Boxing day deals for switches and "Powerline Adapters"

They use your power sockets as networking cables. So you don't need to have cables all around the house or drilling holes every where . You then plug one end next to the Virgin router and plug it in and the other in his room and attach a cheap 5 port switch to that end.

Nilrem

If he's already got a network cable in place (sounds like it if the PC is already connected), then the switch is a better bet than powerline as it's far more reliable and easier to set up.
The op just needs to remember to get a couple of patch cables with the switch

Personally for the extra fiver I'd go gigabit anyway for the switch, as I've said several times in the forum 10/100 is pretty much a waste of money now, it's effectively EOL and with internet speeds regularly nearing and even exceeding 100mb/s (especially with VM), a 100mb/s switch is likely to need replacing within a couple of years to maintain the best speeds around the house.

VM's plan seems to be for all their customers to be getting at a bare minimum of 50mb/s, if not 100mb/s within the next couple of years.

LazyD

Yes what you want is simply a '4 or 5 port gigabit switch'. Any of these will do;

http://www.ebuyer.com/290294-trendnet-5-port-gigabit-greennet-switch-teg-s5g

http://www.ebuyer.com/351554-d-link-dgs-105-5-port-10-100-1000-gigabit-switch-dgs-105-b

I take it the wifi signal does not reach to his room and to his PC?
IF IT DOES: you could just connect his PC to wifi and connect the PS4 to cable (PS4 needs a cable connection to work properly). If you aren't sure whether his room has wifi, just connect your phone to wifi and go there and load some web pages. Usually a wifi adapter for his PC will work better than any phone wifi adapter so just get him this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/264395-netgear-wna1000m-wifi-usb-micro-adapter-wna1000m-100pes

Make sure you put it in a usb port in the back of the PC as sometimes the ones on the front don't have enough power and when it's at the back it's out of the way.

Pincher

There is no such thing as a splitter in the co-ax aerial cable sense.

The switch box has some electronics inside to see the address on the data packets and directs it to the right port (socket).

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/networking/network-routers-and-switches/network-switches/tp-link-tl-sg105-5-port-gigabit-ethernet-switch-21429271-pdt.html

If the room is far away from the VM modem/Wi-Fi router, it might be worth buying a Wi-Fi access point with a switch built-in, so you have four wired ports for cable connection, as well as wireless connections.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/networking/network-routers-and-switches/routers/tp-link-tl-wr841n-n300-wireless-cable-router-10991880-pdt.html

This means you get a decent signal near the new access point, for mobile phones, tablets, and laptops, as well as the wired connections you wanted.

I am not recommending these models, they are just a visual aid and example.

LazyD

Pincher, he already said he has a virgin superhub, which is a coaxial cable modem and simple router and switch in one.

Pincher

LazyD wrote: »

Pincher, he already said he has a virgin superhub, which is a coaxial cable modem and simple router and switch in one.

I have had several Virgin SuperHubs over the years, including the Dual Band version.


Your solution of sharing the broadband through the PC is a good quickie solution, but it does require the PC to be on. Windows also seems to disable the sharing for your protection automatically sometimes. I'm just saying if the SuperHub Wi-Fi is weak around the room in question, they can kill two birds with one stone by having another Wi-Fi access point, which also comes with four wired ports.


The co-ax splitter bit was to explain Ethernet cannot be split by simple electrical connection. The fact that a cable modem uses co-ax for delivery, and the co-ax does use splitters in that way before the modem is possibly confusing, I suppose.


For household with only one wall box, they split the output from the isolator using a splitter. One cable goes to the Tivo, the other goes to the SuperHub. Obviously that is not Ethernet.


I have three Virgin wall boxes, for different rooms. There is one co-ax that comes from the street, which is split into three cables using a splitter, in the brown drop box in the front of the house.

getmore4less

Did you have a different router before the Super hub?
(give the model No. if you did)

Most can be used as switch if you turn off routing.
and if wi-fi many can be used as an access point.

if you have old kit it will(may) do the job for nothing.

JustAnotherSaver

Question:

When you use a switch & have one cable from the router feeding that switch & then say, a PC plugged in to the switch & then say a games console ....

Do they both get the same speed as if they were connected directly to the router, or is it halved?