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Adding more network ports to my PC?


Chris Wilson

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Sorry about the bike, hope you get no hassle getting the insurance.

 

I have had a think, I may want to add newtwork points in other rooms and the workshop next time we re decorate, so with thought to future proofing would this allow me to connect up to 23 ports off the router?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-ProCurve-J3295A-24-Port-10-100-Networking-HUB-/300602787465?pt=UK_Computing_NetworkSwitches_RL&hash=item45fd528689

 

There are lots of variants of HP ProCurves on Ebay, all about the same price. Cheers.

 

This is my fear with the HP one listed, from the HP sire FAQ's:

 

Q: Do the HP ProCurve 10/100 Hub 12, 12m, 24, and 24m support full-duplex? The hub ports can only operate in half-duplex mode. If the attached device is running in full-duplex mode, and cannot auto-negotiate to half duplex, it will cause a lot of late collisions on the network, degrading performance for all nodes.

Q: Do the HP ProCurve 10/100 Hub 12, 12m, 24, and 24m support 802.1Q/802.1p? The HP ProCurve 10/100 Hubs allow 1522 byte size packets tagged with an 802.1Q tag but do not decode the VLAN ID. The hubs do not participate in VLAN tagging or VLAN priorities. The packets will be forwarded without any problems.

Q: Is 10/100Mbps auto-negotiation the same as Plug-n-Play? No. The following configuration will cause severe network problems: [TABLE=width: 560]

[TR]

[TD=align: center] http://www.hp.com/rnd/images/node_configuration.gif[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

The hub, switch, or router will correctly sense (not auto-negotiate) the 10Mbps or 100Mbps speed. Since the end node was configured for a specific speed and duplex state, and therefore does not negotiate, the hub, switch, or router will choose the communication mode specified by the 802.3u standard, namely half-duplex. With one device running at half-duplex and the device on the other end of the connection at full-duplex, the connection will work reasonably well at low levels of traffic. At high levels of traffic the full-duplex device (end node, in this case) will experience an abnormally high level of CRC or alignment errors. The end users usually describe this situation as, "Performance seems to be approximately 1Mbps!". Often, end nodes will drop connections to their servers. In this same situation, the half-duplex device will experience an abnormally high level of late collisions. The network administrator must take care to verify the configuration of each network device during installation. Also, check the operational mode of each network device. That is, check both how you configured it and also that it comes up as you expect, for example, at 10Mbps/half-duplex.

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Sorry about the bike, hope you get no hassle getting the insurance.

 

I have had a think, I may want to add newtwork points in other rooms and the workshop next time we re decorate, so with thought to future proofing would this allow me to connect up to 23 ports off the router?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-ProCurve-J3295A-24-Port-10-100-Networking-HUB-/300602787465?pt=UK_Computing_NetworkSwitches_RL&hash=item45fd528689

 

There are lots of variants of HP ProCurves on Ebay, all about the same price. Cheers.

 

This is my fear with the HP one listed, from the HP sire FAQ's:

 

Q: Do the HP ProCurve 10/100 Hub 12, 12m, 24, and 24m support full-duplex? The hub ports can only operate in half-duplex mode. If the attached device is running in full-duplex mode, and cannot auto-negotiate to half duplex, it will cause a lot of late collisions on the network, degrading performance for all nodes.

Q: Do the HP ProCurve 10/100 Hub 12, 12m, 24, and 24m support 802.1Q/802.1p? The HP ProCurve 10/100 Hubs allow 1522 byte size packets tagged with an 802.1Q tag but do not decode the VLAN ID. The hubs do not participate in VLAN tagging or VLAN priorities. The packets will be forwarded without any problems.

Q: Is 10/100Mbps auto-negotiation the same as Plug-n-Play? No. The following configuration will cause severe network problems: [TABLE=width: 560]

[TR]

[TD=align: center] http://www.hp.com/rnd/images/node_configuration.gif[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

The hub, switch, or router will correctly sense (not auto-negotiate) the 10Mbps or 100Mbps speed. Since the end node was configured for a specific speed and duplex state, and therefore does not negotiate, the hub, switch, or router will choose the communication mode specified by the 802.3u standard, namely half-duplex. With one device running at half-duplex and the device on the other end of the connection at full-duplex, the connection will work reasonably well at low levels of traffic. At high levels of traffic the full-duplex device (end node, in this case) will experience an abnormally high level of CRC or alignment errors. The end users usually describe this situation as, "Performance seems to be approximately 1Mbps!". Often, end nodes will drop connections to their servers. In this same situation, the half-duplex device will experience an abnormally high level of late collisions. The network administrator must take care to verify the configuration of each network device during installation. Also, check the operational mode of each network device. That is, check both how you configured it and also that it comes up as you expect, for example, at 10Mbps/half-duplex.

 

Third Party Only, so I cant claim - but to be fair even if i was, id contemplate not risking my no claims by not claiming anyway!

 

Now onto your hub thing.

Yes, you could connect your router to that, and then from there all/every device(s) you have could talk to one another.

I wouldnt overcomplicate the scenario, and I can understand your researching your proposed purchase, however with it being 10/100 its performance wouldnt be that great, so you wouldnt really be futureproofing yourself.

 

The one i listed was 10/100 because I thought it was just for printing and such but if your futureproofing id go for something like this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Netgear-GS116-16-port-10-100-1000-Mbps-Gigabit-Switch-/110759906552?pt=UK_Computing_NetworkSwitches_RL&hash=item19c9ce0cf8 (as it goes to 1gig speeds)

 

 

But as with everything with life, you can just keep going and going and going and getting deeper into better/faster... :)

 

Switches are full duplex, hubs are usualy half duplex, cheap, and are ideal for printers, but not the greatest for conducting a network from.

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Given that I rarely update my PC, what's the adavantage of the 1 gig stuff? My mate who is a bit of a PC boffin has rung about something on his car, and he too mentioned 1 gig ports. He suggested this thing:

 

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=1586&model=TL-SF1016DS

 

or the similar one with the one gig port:

 

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=1587&model=TL-SL1117

 

The price of about £15 for the 16 port with no 1 gig port sounds appealing, but if this 1 gig thing is important....To be honest 16 ports is more than plenty. I only looked at the HP thing as I have had had good luck with used HP stuff in general.

 

I'll have a decko at your links, but I don't really understand what I am looking at. With 1 gig stuff do I need different cables, as I haven't put any in the structure of the house, yet? Thanks!!

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1Gig only really important if you're pushing really big files Chris, or something in your chain doesn't support 100Mb. It's just throughput (I'm sure you don't need that high a duty cycle)

 

Only really required for meaty things like network attached disk arrays tbh.

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16 ports is overkill. I'd use something like this:

http://www.dabs.com/products/netgear-8-port-10---100---1000mbps-gigabit-switch-38DS.html?q=gigabit%20switch

 

 

For 50 quid it's all the networking you'll ever need. Also, the gigabit switches are more intelligent than 10/100 hubs - you don't get any problems with daisy chaining, no need for crossover cables, and everything just works fine. And it has flashy lights.

 

Additional - if you want a 8 port 10/100 switch I think I've got two of them gathering dust in a cupboard, you can have one for nowt if you want :)

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seroiusly ditch xp and go 7 though :)

 

Or don't :) I've moved to Win7 on my second PC and it's errr, the same as XP only with a worse user interface. Except it supports my touchscreen - woo. Everything has been dumbed down for the 'average' user I guess, which is frustrating to someone who can actually use a computer :D And oh my god, what did they do to the search engine? It just doesn't work any more.

 

I was expecting big things from Win7 but it's just as bad as Vista. I hear Win8 is going towards an even stupider UI, to please the iphonepodpadandroidphoneapp crowd, gawd help us :cry:

 

Errr hijack over :)

 

-Ian

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Hubs only do Half-Duplex so my recommendation would be to go for a Switch, 10/100 should be more than adequate however if you see yourself pushing a lot of media around, Network based Storage, etc then perhaps a Gig switch would be worthwhile, else not. plenty of switches linked to in earlier posts so will leave it to you to decide which one is best.

 

imi

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Or don't :) I've moved to Win7 on my second PC and it's errr, the same as XP only with a worse user interface. Except it supports my touchscreen - woo. Everything has been dumbed down for the 'average' user I guess, which is frustrating to someone who can actually use a computer :D And oh my god, what did they do to the search engine? It just doesn't work any more.

 

I was expecting big things from Win7 but it's just as bad as Vista. I hear Win8 is going towards an even stupider UI, to please the iphonepodpadandroidphoneapp crowd, gawd help us :cry:

 

Errr hijack over :)

 

-Ian

 

Its easier to search through a dos prompt than the built in search feature, it doesnt find anything!!

Im still on XP, and will be for some time!

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Or don't :) I've moved to Win7 on my second PC and it's errr, the same as XP only with a worse user interface. Except it supports my touchscreen - woo. Everything has been dumbed down for the 'average' user I guess, which is frustrating to someone who can actually use a computer :D And oh my god, what did they do to the search engine? It just doesn't work any more.

 

I was expecting big things from Win7 but it's just as bad as Vista. I hear Win8 is going towards an even stupider UI, to please the iphonepodpadandroidphoneapp crowd, gawd help us :cry:

 

Errr hijack over :)

 

-Ian

 

couldnt agree more, I believe XP is still a brilliant OS, well atleast as far as the user interface is concerned.

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Guest supra_steve86
£24.99 ???

£24.99 ??

 

Get with the program :D

 

lol last time i pluck a number out of my head! ok like £5.99 there that better! :p

 

and sorry to hi jack here but XP boys what are you on about!!

 

iv got a 8tb nas drive and 7 instant searchs it and comes straight back. with xp used to get all kinds of grief with driver issues, blue screen of deaths! plus W7 installs like a ghost image onto anything without any messing about. Vista was shocking il admit but never have any greif with 7.

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lol last time i pluck a number out of my head! ok like £5.99 there that better! :p

Im willing to take the £19.00 remainder if you like?

and sorry to hi jack here but XP boys what are you on about!!

iv got a 8tb nas drive and 7 instant searchs it and comes straight back.

Yeah it comes straight back with "file not found" :D

Try searching for something using wildcards, you'll find NOTHING!!

On a W7/Vista machine DOS is the only way of finding filenames using wildcards.

with xp used to get all kinds of grief with driver issues, blue screen of deaths! plus W7 installs like a ghost image onto anything without any messing about. Vista was shocking il admit but never have any greif with 7.

Thats because you are a noob :D

 

..enjoy your annoying waity-circle!!

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Personally I liked NT 3.51, so I won't be rushing away from XP, yo which I only switched to from Windows 2000 to get USB port support :)

 

Thanks Ian, that's very good of you, I'll PM you now, and thanks to all for the advice. I need to look up switches and hubs to see what the differences are I think.

 

BTW, I have a mint Ascend Pipeline P75 router with all documentation, from years back when we lived at the old house, does it have any value?

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We run hundreds of desktop switches at work and these netgear ones work pretty well, they take a load of abuse (dropped, trodden on, kicked) and never seem to fail

http://www.misco.co.uk/Product/39464/NETGEAR-8-Port-10-100-Ethernet-Unmanaged-Compact-Switch

 

We have changed to the higher end pro-safe plus units for the extra features when running a massive network, but the FS108 works great. I could ship you one but shipping would be almost as much as a new unit.

 

We have run clients with over 200 laptops on multiple ones of those and never had problems with them not being gigabit.

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