Ethernet Switch Box help...

[Gavrushka]

Ah, thank you! I did see some gubbins about it in the device manager, and that now also explains why it happens every time now I've turned off fast startup (which takes just as long as the, umm, long start up.)

I did a degree in computer science, once upon a time, but that long ago they taught COBOL & Lisp and Fortran...

[Vertigo 7]

knowing coding languages doesn't teach you how to manage your desktop OS =p if you really wanna learn the innerworkings of Windows 10, get an MCP certification, or whatever they're calling it these days. It won't take long but you'll learn a lot about some behind the scenes workings of the OS.

[Gavrushka]

You know, I might just go ahead and take some course or other! Microsoft are forever sending me emails about seminars, so I'll check distance learning stuff online. - Coding was just a part of the course, but I also got to do other things such as build half and full adders out of individual logic gates, with switches and LEDs to do basic maths and display the results. I never thought proving that 2+2 really did equal 4 could be such fun... LOL

*EDIT* I'm stupid... Regarding the original issue with unmanaged switch not giving sufficient bandwidth to my Sky Q box (a satellite to the main box.) Well, I unplugged the ethernet cable, and let it work wirelessly. Seamlessly. Effortlessly. I just can't believe I didn't think of this in the 1st place. - Box doesn't have anything to do with my broadband connection speed. - It receives its signal from the main box.

I am really that stupid...

[Vertigo 7]

*EDIT* I'm stupid... Regarding the original issue with unmanaged switch not giving sufficient bandwidth to my Sky Q box (a satellite to the main box.) Well, I unplugged the ethernet cable, and let it work wirelessly. Seamlessly. Effortlessly. I just can't believe I didn't think of this in the 1st place. - Box doesn't have anything to do with my broadband connection speed. - It receives its signal from the main box.

I am really that stupid...

That doesn't really make any sense. I mean, sure, if you have a bad switch then connecting wirelessly would improve your throughput but even with that, WiFi... bleh... wouldn't recommend it for gaming.

I don't really have a grasp of your network setup. Is your modem and router a separate device? If so, this is where I'm a bit confused, you have a switch between your modem and router?

[Gavrushka]

Ah, I guess I never explained things properly. - The Sky Q box is for watching TV, and is a secondary box receiving a signal from the main box, not from the internet. - As my main Sky box* is connected to the router via Ethernet, I decided to do likewise for my secondary box. - Thing is, I've countless devices connected to the router, and I think part of the problem is the volume of devices as much as the bandwidth. - My PC is connected by ethernet cable, and always will be. Other PCs are connected likewise, but there's many tablets and phones and smart devices connected too. Now I have a perfect connectivity for watching TV, and it no longer compromises my PC's bandwidth (which was connected to the same unmanaged switch.)

And on the other problem, even with FastStart disabled, my added fans above the PSU tunnel are still spinning up on boot, but always dropping in speed if I 'restart.'


* The Sky Box is linked to a satellite dish, but the router connection is to allow downloading boxed sets / films, watching YouTube, Netflix and Prime etc. etc.

[jlehtone]

Ah, I guess I never explained things properly. - The Sky Q box is for watching TV, and is a secondary box receiving a signal from the main box, not from the internet. - As my main Sky box* is connected to the router via Ethernet, I decided to do likewise for my secondary box.
... my PC's bandwidth (which was connected to the same unmanaged switch.)

"connected to router" ... "connected to switch" ... "signal from main Sky to Sky Q" ... "WiFi".

Oh my. My crystal ball is still a bit foggy.

Does main Sky use Ethernet connection to talk to Sky Q?

Lets have some devices:

Code: Select all

ISP --- modem --- router --- switch --- wired client
                        \--- WAP ... wireless client

The PC is wired to switch. Its traffic uses switch==router==ISP.
The main Sky is wired to switch?
The Sky Q was/is wireless client. It tried to be wired to switch.

When Sky Q is wireless ... if it uses Ethernet to talk to main Sky, then their traffic goes through WAP==router==switch. If Sky Q talks directly to Netflix, then its traffic goes through WAP==router==ISP.
If both Skies are wired to switch, then their talk should pass only through the switch.

[Gavrushka]

LOL. I feel the last soggy remnants of my brain dripping out of my ears.

Everything is connected to the router, either by Wifi (phones and tablets) or by ethernet cable (via switches due to volume of devices.) My Sky Q 'secondary box' has nothing to do with that set up, but links directly via WiFi to the main Sky Box. - My Sky Q box receives its live broadcast signal via a satellite dish, but it also is connected by ethernet to the router so it can download additional non-live content. The secondary box is merely a 'satellite' to this, receiving its content from the main box. A dumb terminal.

So all roads lead to router accept my ickle secondary Sky Q box which gets its gubbins from the main Sky Q box.

Now back to the traditional sausage meat and stuffing sandwiches.

Oh, and there's more than one switch...

[jlehtone]

There is logical connection and physical connection. By "Everything is connected to the router" you imply that there is no device that is member of such subnet that the router is not also member of. No disjoint subnet that has no link to the router. That is about logical connection. "All roads lead to" no matter how many switches there are on the path.

PC is connected to switch and switch is connected to router. Hence, both PC and router are member of same subnet. Same broadcast domain. They are logically connected.

Then there is physical connection. I have two WAP. Their cables go directly to the router (because router supplies them power via PoE). The third device physically connected to the router is a switch. My PC is physically connected to the switch. Logically, it is connected to router too, via the switch. When my PC talks to my NAS, the router is not involved because they are on the same switch.
(The ISP's Ethernet cable is also connected to the router, but that is a different subnet.)

At work I have two machines that are connected to same switch physically, but they can't see each other because they are logically in different subnets. (Managed switch has VLANs.)

[Vertigo 7]

having a bajillion devices on the same network doesn't mean much in terms of bandwidth usage. having a bajillion devices simultaneously streaming 4k hdr content is another story. I, myself, have 30something devices on my network but only 4 or 5 are actively taxing my network with any kind of oomph at any one time.

As far as the switch is concerned, if you have say, an 8 port gigabit switch, the switch itself should have a total maximum throughput of 8 gigabit. It's highly doubtful you're saturating a port, much less the entire switch unless you're doing a lot of local file transfers from machine to machine on your network.

It is entirely possible you have a bad switch. But other things to look for would be your cables. You need to make sure you have at least cat5e and can confirm end to end they're good cables. If you have any that are just cat5, toss them and get yourself some cat6. But if it is your switch, any SoHo gigabit switch will work just fine for you, though I would stick with more reputable brands like Cisco/linksys, DLink, Netgear among a few. Oh and stay away from the "green" switches. The power usage between those and standard are so miniscule it's not worth the power saving features.

Do yourself a favor, though, and try to sort out your wired network issues. Unless you have a 10gig 802.11AX access point and NIC, you will stand to gain much faster speeds with wired and reduced latency.

[pjknibbs]

You need to make sure you have at least cat5e and can confirm end to end they're good cables. If you have any that are just cat5, toss them and get yourself some cat6.

And also make sure you're not inadvertently introducing a routing loop to the switch, albeit I would expect that to cause *much* more serious problems than the one described.

[Gavrushka]

I've a spare pair of Cat 6 10m cables to link the two switches to the routers, but I'll buy a pair of decent managed switches and a pack of cat 6 cables to run to all my devices. - I'm pretty sure my TPlink switch is goosed, but it only seems to make my Sky Q box suffer which should not be taking any internet bandwidth, just on my local network. - I will be attaching a new CCTV system to it with 8x4k cameras, but my previous HD system had no issues with outputting to 5 or 6 devices simultaneously (all local.)

I guess it's not as straightforward with managed switches to plug 'em in and let them do their thing, but I will do some reading first. - Ideally, I'd like to be able to plug a WiFi extender into one port of each switch to help improve the coverage of phones and tablets to all parts, including gardens.

And I do see the main problem is my lack of knowledge. That is, at least, something I can put right.

Thanks to everyone for shining a light on my ignorance.

[Vertigo 7]

if you're gonna setup vlans, just be forewarned it's a complex and moderately expensive process. At a minimum you'll need an L2+ switch plus additional L2 switches as needed and something other than your router to run DHCP. There are WiFi APs that can tag SSIDs with vlan IDs, but failing that, you'll need separate APs for each SSID otherwise.

[Gavrushka]

Eventually I'll set up a NAS, but I'm not setting up a VLAN. - If I were to share the CCTV output beyond this household, it's done via a third party website, I believe. - In fact, the only things I will ever share locally will be one photo drive, and a printer. Nothing else has access to anything.

I hope that made sense. I've a feeling you just asked me about trigonometry, and I've just replied by explaining how to make a lovely suet pudding...

[jlehtone]

I guess it's not as straightforward with managed switches to plug 'em in and let them do their thing, but I will do some reading first. - Ideally, I'd like to be able to plug a WiFi extender into one port of each switch to help improve the coverage of phones and tablets to all parts, including gardens.

Managed switch acts plug'n'play just like unmanaged. It is if/when you want to configure extra features that you need to connect to their admin interface.

WiFi "extender" / "repeater" / "mesh" is different from "AP" (Access Point). The extenders (AFAIK) just forward WiFi signals between AP and client. They don't connect to subnet with wire. A better "mesh" uses different WiFi channel to talk to "main AP" and to client. A cheap repeater uses only one channel and thus effectively halves the bandwidth.

A dedicated AP is just a "modem" that converts wired to wireless (and back). If you have more than one AP, they can offer same or different SSID. It is up to your (moving) client device to decide when/if they switch to different SSID or to stronger AP of the SSID that they currently use.

A single AP can offer more than one SSID (i.e. subnet). When AP is integrated into consumer router, the router's config might have "Guest WLAN" option. When AP is separate device (which is nice because you can then place it more optimally, particularly if it supports PoE, i.e. gets power via the Ethernet cable) it must use VLANs to keep the subnets separate also in the wire and the router (and/or switches) must support VLANs too.

A "consumer router" is often a combo device that has (optionally) a modem (DSL or Cable), the router, AP, and (4-port) switch. No VLANs. No option to designate the ports of the switch to separate subnets.

VLAN is a technology to send traffic of more than one subnet through same wire. Less distinct ports on router, less cabling, less switches than if you have multiple subnets without VLANs. However, if you have no need for more than one subnet, then you don't need VLANs.

[Vertigo 7]

What he said, and if you're not gonna bother with subnetting, there's no need to buy managed switches. You can go with a large 24-48 port unmanaged switch and that will most likely suit your entire network. You can also daisy chain smaller switches and that'll work fine.

If you wanna extend your wireless network, ASUS routers (and probably other brands as well) can switch into Access Point only mode, disabling routing and DHCP providing you an additional port for switching as well as the wifi capabilities without needing to put the AP into repeater mode. I do this myself with one AP on channel 1 in 2.4ghz and the other on channel 11, but both with the same SSIDs, encryption, and password. Something like that is a good choice for consumer networks. You have options for that.

[Gavrushka]

Ah, I get the bit about extenders. Thanks.

A lot of the other stuff did kinda overwhelm me, with the exception of daisy chaining, so as promised a little earlier in the thread I am gonna try and shine a light on my ignorance. I've just downloaded a free home networking book and will wade through it when I get time.

Some people, as they get older, become treasure troves of endless knowledge. Alas, I think my chest was plundered long ago, and all I'm left with is a vacant stare and the vain hope I'm nodding at the right time. *nods*

[jlehtone]

The funny thing is that consumer routers (e.g. ASUS routers) tend to be cheaper than discrete Access Points.
However, I rather look at https://www.google.com/search?q=AP+on+ceiling&tbm=isch
than https://www.google.com/search?q=home+router&tbm=isch

[Gavrushka]

I love the look of the ceiling ones, but they're not quite as relocatable.

Today I managed to go into my BIOS on boot (Lord, it's a lot prettier and more informative than on my previous PCs, with graphics and full mouse control.) - Anyhow, I managed to change the fan profile from 'whatever it was' to 'DC' or something, and the 'stuck at 100%' has stopped. Fans run a little faster as a baseline, including my CPU watercooler fans, and my CPU is now idling at 16-17 Celsius, which I thought was pretty decent.

[jlehtone]

"Relocatable" ... do you mean that you would not place it optimally on first try?
(I tried. The attempts to drill holes into reinforced concrete are still there. The AP is not. )

... my CPU is now idling at 16-17 Celsius ...

What is your room temperature? I've heard tales about british housing, but <= 16C ...

[Gavrushka]

"Relocatable" ... do you mean that you would not place it optimally on first try?

As has been pointed out by many people, from schoolteachers to my ex wife to other forum members, everything I do embraces the essence of suboptimal.

What is your room temperature? I've heard tales about british housing, but <= 16C ...

I live in the northern wastes of England, but the current temperature in here is 19 Celsius, which is about 68 Fahrenheit in medieval money.

So, yes, my CPU *is* at a lower temperature than ambient.