lan hub

[SurgiKal]

if am using 10 pcs for lan gaming and internet multi player gameing such cs, halo, bf1942, and other games and am also internet surfing .what is the best thing to use ... a hub ? and if am using a hub is (10 bast t) hub is good enough for this or should i get the 10/100 10 bast T ,,, and can a normal cabel or dsl do the job or should i look for faster conections like a t3
one more thing what is the senseor switch in the hubs
thanx alot

[ZeratulsAvenger]

Umm for 10 people doing intense online work such as gaming, I would factor it out for 100-125 KB per comp, so that times 10 and you get a hefty 1-1.25 GB. I know that cable and DSL up here don't go that high normally, but have seen many people with connections doubling that. And you would need a router for one thing, and from there you could branch off into several hubs(2 I guess if you go for 5 port hubs). That is how I would do it, but I don't know much about that sort of stuff for more than 4-5 comps. Router in place for firewall purposes and you could use 2 switch's instead of hubs. Oh and go for the standard hub, whichever that may be. 10Base-T? That's what the hub I have as a backup, incase I get more then 4 comps on our router, uses

[mattg2k4]

A 10megabit hub is pretty slow, plus with 10 PCs you will have lots of collisions when using a hub. I would get a 10/100 switch, each port (theoretically) gets the full 100mbit (200mbit with full duplex) bandwidth and collisions are greatly reduced.

Cable and DSL speeds vary by area, and I'm not sure how much bandwidth you would be using while gaming online. A T3 would be overkill for only 10 computers though, if you're going to get something better than cable or DSL a T1 should suit you well, but the price difference between regular broadband and a T1 is quite large.

The "senseor switch" in the hub? Not sure exactly what you mean, some hubs have a switch which toggles one port on it to act as an uplink port so it can connect to other hubs/switches without using a crossover cable.

[SurgiKal]

thank u guys for answering my post .........
well .. lets say i used a 16 port 10/100 switch and i uplinked it to a the cable or dsl modem .,.. would that be better than getting a router? .. or the router is a must have in this case?
thanx

[Confused]

With a switch each PC will need it's own IP address. Most providers charge for additional IP addresses.

A router only requires the one IP address.

I would get a 4 port router with built in switch and then hood a 16 port or a couple of 8 port hubs to it and then the PC's to the hubs.
Chas

[SurgiKal]

okay , this is what am going to do , get a 4 port router with switch and then hood it with 16 port switch (not a hub ) to avoid collisions .....how thats sound

[SurgiKal]

or wait a min the router with switch will make the hubs work as swithces? is that what it is?

[gunrunnerjohn]

If you want multiple computers all playing the same Internet connected game, you may have problems doing that with a router. Unless you can configure the games to use different ports for each copy, and that's all sorted out at the other end, you won't be able to play more than one Internet connected session.

[mattg2k4]

No, the hubs would still be hubs. What the router does is it connects to the internet with a single public IP address, then all of the rest of the PC's on the network connect to the router. This means you only need one IP address from your ISP which is cheaper than say 10 IP addresses.

The difference between hubs and switches is that hubs transmit any incoming data from any of its ports to all of the other ports on it, and then only the computer that its destined for actually picks it up. A switch only transfers incoming data to the port which needs to receive the data.

A 4 port router with a 16 port switch would be a nice setup and leave you plenty of room to expand beyond 10 PC's.

[SurgiKal]

thank u alot

[glc]

I'd read gunrunner's advice carefully - if you are setting up a cafe you may want to get a service that gives you enough public IP addresses for each machine - a partial T1 or business SDSL/cable for example. Thiese services will usually come with an appropriate router which you simply plug into your switch or switches.