Well in about 3 months, I'll be moving back into a house with my college friends.

The house is full of computer science majors (including me) with a bunch of gaming computers (not me).

We already have a network setup throughout the house, but it is my task to upgrade the whole thing.

The first piece of equipment to be replaced is the current Wireless Router which will be upgraded so a Linksys Gigabit Switch (10/100/1000) with 5 ports. 4 of the 5 ports are gigabit, while the last one is 100mb. The four computers in the house that game the most will be using the gigabit ports for obvious reasons. The fifth port will be connected to a DLink wireless router through the uplink port which will just extend our nettwork for the wireless users in the house (me). Now from the Dlink wireless router we will connect a 5 port switch (basic 10/100) for random devices that need connection to the LAN like our XBOXes or PS2s.

Fun stuff but the gigabit router alone will run about $340. The other equipment is already in the house and CAT5 is plentiful. We might even add a printer server during this process, but that's what the second switch is for.

 

 

 

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Oh Mercy! $340 for the Linksys router? That's horridly expensive, even if the router provides ensures immaculate connectivity. I assume you're going to divide that sum by 5, right?

But it's a very structured network you guys have. Perfect accomodation for the current computers, and plenty left for future additions. I suppose that's what you get when you put 5 Computer Science majors in one place. :smile:

Would you tell us about the performace of the Gigabit router when you get it installed? That'd be a great piece of information.

Thanks, snutz. Cheers.

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Yea, I'll post again when we find out how well the gigabit router works and if it is worth the investmest, but this won't be until April when I move back.

We'll definitely get some good benchmarks because the computers that will benefit the most will be a network hog with all the LAN games.

We also got a dedicated Linux box so all of us have a Shell account that we can SSH into and some server space. The reason for the print server is because I haven't found a way to get our current printer to work under Linux. Its a Lexmark printer with no available drivers for Linux (not even CUPS will work with it).

The biggest task for me and my roommates will be to rewire the entire house...due the lack of thinking of the guys who did it before. We got CAT5 hanging everywhere and its in the way when we walk through some hallways and the position of the wireless router cuts out half of the signal which causes the connection to fail every now and then.

 

 

 

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340 dam thats alot

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for the new router...I would suggest a different one then the lynxsys one. I'm an avid gamer myself and I would suggest one by DLink called the Gamers Lounge, it is also Gigabit capable and runs a protocol called "gamers Fuel" that gives priority to games. Just a suggestion here is a link to the DLink Gamers Lounge.

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You have to divide the sum by 4, and not by 5.
As a matter of fact, only 4 people will have access to the 1giga throughput, the 5th one will use a wifi device, so he has to pay 1/5 of a cheap 100 megs/sec device.

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Sorry to be a wet blanket..... BUT.

take the game "Counter Strike: Source"

this game uses 10kbps of bandwidth.

So the lag factor here is due to latency, NOT bandwidth.

in gigabit network, provided that the bandwidth useage is below 100% the latency is no greater than a 10Mbit network.

As far as gaming is concerned, the 1gig network is a waste of money.

Unless you are planning streaming several DVD video's simultaniusly, anything faster that 100Mbit is wasted.

If you go ahead with this, just for arguemnt sake, try replacing the 1Gig router with a 100Mbit router.. if there is any differance to gaming, i will eat y hat, with a large helping of tobasco source

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After doing some more research on gigabit routers/switches, it seems that I have been sorely misquoted on the price of the gigabit switch I had in mind.

There is an 8-port Dlink gigabit switch available at newegg.com for around $50-60.

And even if there would be minimal improvements for LAN gaming alone, keep in mind that there are about 8 people in the house. All have computers, all browse the web, all are on IM. Between the 8 of us, we do enough computing for a small IT office.

Not everyone is a computer science major, we got some business majors as well...

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I'm telling you check into the D-Link Gamers Lounge if your really worried about gaming latancy, it really does lower the latency issue to almost nothing.

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Your internet connection is possably 3Megabit MAXIMUM.

Even a very old 10Mbit home network would easily handle 3Mbit internet (with a 7 Mbits to spare)

but i dont think you can even buy 10Mbit cards anymore.

and as for instant messageing.....
How fast are you planning on Typing !!!

You dont need a Gigabit LAN.

A Gigabit lan will offer zero improvements in gaming experiance.

It will not improve internet performance.

It will be a waste of money.

Unless ofcourse you are planning on gaming, whilst simultaniously transfereing files the size of DVD's across the network.

Use a 100Mbit network, and wherever possable, uses switches instead of hubs.

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