Router with more than 4 ports and fast wireless

antivirus6613

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Oct 21, 2006
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We are wiring a home for cat5 and i was wondering how i was going to hook all the cables after.

A standard router has 4 ports, there is going to be like 10+ different rooms with cat5 so how can i connect them to the router? Is there a router with that many ports, and also then i need it to be wireless so is there one combined or should i hook up a wireless router to a wired router?

Or is that possible?
 

Iceblue

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Sep 9, 2006
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The simplest solution would be to buy your favorite wireless router (for its wireless performance, etc.) and then add an ethernet switch to one of the wired ports to connect the rest of your machines. You can get up to 8 port wireless switches pretty cheap (like this one), and combined with a 4 port wireless router, this would allow you to connect up to 11 wired clients.

How important is performance on your home network? For example, will you be doing large file transfers between you machines, or playing multi-player games? If so, you may want to invest in gigabit. You'll also want to be sure the router you buy performs well with 10+ wired clients plus your wireless clients in the network.
 

antivirus6613

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Performance is a must. I need the max speed possible on the network. We have 10/100/1000 mbps cards. So i was reading about switches and it says they dont get assigned an IP address and you have to use a computer as a gateway. I would like if all the computers would have IP , and we will be playing games over lan and streaming movies,music.


Do you have a suggestion on a router that performs well with 10+ clients?


Ya, i was reading online and they say switch is not good option, router is the best. But i cannot find a router with that many ports so ya i think i might buy an 8 port switch and then hook up to my wireless router, but it says that my computers will not be visable on network and so on?
 

Iceblue

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Your router will assign the addresses to all clients connected to the switch. You don't need to use a computer as the gateway; that will also be done by the router.

But, if I can read between the lines, if you are setting up for a LAN party or for gaming, you will need to pay attention to the throughput performance of every part of your network management. Just having 12 ports does not mean the router will be capable of the performance you are needing.
 

antivirus6613

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Ya, i realized that so im going to get an wireless N router that can also do g (one laptop) and b ( psp). So whats a good feature i should be looking for.Like is there an acceleration feature or 1000mbit routers or some kind of smart router.Like do i need a special router? ex. dlink has 2.4ghz.

Or should i just get a business router?
Do you have
Thats why i am posting on the forum, i dont no.
 

gstrother1

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2.4ghz is the wavelength band that the wireless uses.

802.11b/g use 2.4ghz which is by far the most common.

There is quite a few 4port routers that support 10/100/1000 switching:

http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370 D-Link DGL-4300 (802.11b/g)

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Sate...754557&pagename=Linksys/Common/VisitorWrapper Linksys WRVS4400N (802.11b/g/draft-n)

http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/RangeMaxNEXTWirelessRoutersandGateways/WNR854T.aspx Netgear WNR854T (802.11b/g/draft-n)

All have 4 10/100/1000 wired ports. Grab another 8/16 port gigabit switch (there is tons to choose from) and your set
 

the_taker

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Mar 27, 2006
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Ditto
There is quite a few 4port routers that support 10/100/1000 switching:

http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370 D-Link DGL-4300 (802.11b/g)

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagen...=US%2FL Linksys WRVS4400N (802.11b/g/draft-n)

http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/RangeMaxNEXTWireles...utersan Netgear WNR854T (802.11b/g/draft-n)

All have 4 10/100/1000 wired ports. Grab another 8/16 port gigabit switch (there is tons to choose from) and your set
 

saint33

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Feb 5, 2013
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Hey all -
I am setting up a new small office network and I want to make sure my design using Cisco routers is adequate for what I am wanting to do. I will have a 27Mbps network connection, approx 20 users wired/wireless, 10 of which will be wired desktops/laptops, printers, the other 10 likely to connect via wireless. My plan is to buy the Cisco EA4500 wireless router and the SE2800 8 port Gigabit Ethernet Switch. Will this setup keep consistent performance across wireless and wired connections? What can these handle in concurrent connections performing normal daily email and web browsing? Is there a more recommended setup I should implement?

Thank you for your help!
 

dbhosttexas

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This reply is for both antivirus6613 and saint33...

If it were me setting up a new home, or small business network, where I wasn't hosting publicly available servers, i would...

#1. Use a quality router. My Cisco / Linksys EA2700 is okay, but the EA4500 that saint33 mentions is a great router. Better speed, better config options, and usb storage options for using the router as a NAS if you want. Hard to beat...
#2. Forget the 8 port switches. I used them for a while, and ended up daisy chaining them together. Performance takes a real hit doing that. 16 and 24 port unmanaged gigabit switches are downright reasonable in price these days. I am very happy with my TrendNET and would happily buy another if I needed a new switch.
#3. Forget cat5e. Category 6 cabling isn't THAT much more... And would be less trouble prone performance wise...

Your uplink from router to switch will be a single gigabit bottlneck, which really, it's gigabit... Unless you saturate your WiFi shoving large files to the wired network, you won't slow it down...