Ot :Teh lan.

[NightShade]

I'm seeing up a lan with some buddies and need some equiptment suggestions (aka what hub is prefered with a price/usefulness ratio..) and other stuff I should be aware of before walking into this.

We all have relatively the same computer setups, all have everything required for the lan to physically be enabled.

Just watching for the pitfalls. I don't want another "what the hell..my xbox is too old to play xbox live!" problem coming up

[Ka0s047]

Sry really cant help ya there, all i know is when i goto lan parties with my friends. there is a nice little blue hub with i think 20 hook ups, and 10mb/s(or is it 100?), and i plug the cord in the back of my computer, and then into the hub, windoz does some stuff, and bam im lan ready. (wow that was a HUGE run on sentance...)

[Warg]

A switch as i recall is faster than a hub and the price difference is probably abysmal. You want a 10/100 mbs(?) Switch and as long as you stay with quality brands like 3com, netgear and so on you`d be fine. Question is is how many ports do you need and will you be connected to internet(router) 8-10 ports or more(8-10 people/computers), wireless?

Good tech forums: www.hardocp.com, www.overclockers.com

Have phun :)

[terrymanning]

A switch isn't necessary. Get a 10/100 auto-sensing hub and you will be fine. However, wireless is the secks. Just remember to change from infrastructure mode to ad hoc mode if you are connecting to each other without an access point.

TM

[Warg]

I agree that a switch isn`t necessary for gaming, but usually on lans there are a bit of erm... filesharing and when X number of peeps sends files across the network at the same time during gaming breaks would`nt a switch pay off in the long run?

[Carnage-DVS]

Heh. Whenever I visit Pakistan, we all go to the same lan place. The lan place my friend's father owns. Yes, thats right. 50 computers, free all day and all night. Ah....*can't wait to go back this summer*

[NightShade]

Thanks for the help. I have an unforunate habbit of having short foresite for computer things.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Isn't a hub > switch?
I thought that hubs were the ones where listed speed = speed to all connections, and that switches were the ones where listed speed = that number/number of connections.

Am I confused somewhere?

Not that it matters to me, as I'm just using the router that my roommate's cousin may or may not have accidentally thrown into the garbage while unloading his employer's shipment and gone back for later -.-

Also, most important thing for lans is to make sure that your box is 1923457 times cooler than anyone elses.

[NightShade]

My old back up computer (aka my lan computer..runs d2, half life and other applications older than me) is currently supporting my coffee table, so I suppose I will have to hook up my real computer

[doubleOObubble]

A switch is generally > a hub.

[Baboon]

I once brought to a LAN a Sitecom 10/100 mbit hub which was covered with some sort of metal on the outside instead of plastic. When we started to play diablo2 and exchange stuff, the hub was renamed 'the toaster'. It did a pretty good job however, it kept working and didn't burst into flames :lol:

[Baboon]

Isn't a hub > switch?
I thought that hubs were the ones where listed speed = speed to all connections, and that switches were the ones where listed speed = that number/number of connections.

Am I confused somewhere?

Not that it matters to me, as I'm just using the router that my roommate's cousin may or may not have accidentally thrown into the garbage while unloading his employer's shipment and gone back for later -.-

Also, most important thing for lans is to make sure that your box is 1923457 times cooler than anyone elses.

A 100 mbit switch gives user A 100mbit speed with user B, while user C also has 100 mbit with user D.

With a hub, the 100 mbit is shared, so if two users are using the entire 100 mbit, there is not much left for the others.

So actually, switch > hub :uhhuh:

[terrymanning]

Basically the difference between a switch and a hub are the way each device delivers frames. A hub, or repeater, repeats the frames it sees coming from a source port on every port it has. It is then up to the NIC in computer to determine if it is the destination of the repeated frame. A switch only repeats the frames on the specific destination port. A switch builds bridging tables and learns what MAC addresses are on each port. When a computer sends a frame to another computer the switch knows what port the destination computer is on and only replicates the frame on that specific port. A switch also handles shared media access differently. On shared media, a computer cannot send a frame unless it has control of the media. When you have many computers attempting to access the shared media it results in collisions. When many computers are plugged into a hub they all share the media and you have a large collision domain. When you use a switch each port is it’s own collision domain. Therefore each computer can transmit and receive data independently of each other.

As for data rates, Ethernet is only rated to 40% of listed capacity before things get weird.

TM

[GrnEggsNHam]

just make sure you are all useing windows XP so that you can just plug in and go :). Otherwise you can run into things like "hey I can see him and him but not you?" and what not.