lan adsl router thingy

[SilentDeath]

heres my current lan:

4 port adsl router/switch -> my pc (100mbit)
-> dads pc (100mbit)

-> 10mbit port hub -> brothers pc (10mbit)
-> mums pc (10mbit)

:O it doesnt show the spaces

recently ive been transfering large files accross from my brothers to mine and the 10mbit hub can only really do 1mbit due to collisions and stuff... so i need a new hub/switch

my adsl 4port router is crap, it overheats a few times per day and or the line dies which interupts stuff which can be quite annoying - this never happened with my alcatel speed touch usb. can any one think of a fix for this im not too sure if its overheatng but that would make most sense, and as im on the 3.5km border from exchange the the SNR isnt too good either. can u get signal boosters for phone lines like u can for tv ariels?

eurobell (local part of telewest) is turning from analoge t digital next month so i *could* change to cable internet, and my freeserve contract is up then aswell

so if i got cable instead of adsl and a shiny new switch and the cable modem that comes with the cable (which costs £10 i think?) i could plug the cable modem straight into the new shiny switch? and sell both the adsl router and the crappeh 10mbit hub? ive got pleanty of cable (both cross and straight), all nics can do 100mbit, would i need anything else to make this decent?
/me hopes i wouldnt need a router for cable as the cable modem uses ethernet

[Jonny M]

No. You will need a router for your cable modem.

[Wolf Man]

If you have a spare machine, just a barebone system, your could throw linux onto the box and use it as a router? This would need some learning if you don't understand linux too well, but it isn't the hardest thing in the world, just means you have a machine on all the time and the usb modem can then plug into that and the machine can feed into the switch, and so on. Bit complicated, but if you want to do stuff with it, or even use it to serve stuff could be very useful.

Otherwise I suggest you buy a decent router and upgrade to cable, as cable generally is the faster if compared to BT ADSL.

[acidrainy]

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
im on the 3.5km border from exchange the the SNR isnt too good either. can u get signal boosters for phone lines like u can for tv ariels?

You can contact your ISP and have them arrange for you to get the gain upped on the line... we do it for some btoppenworld customers and it all goes through bt wholesale anyways......

so if i got cable instead of adsl and a shiny new switch and the cable modem that comes with the cable (which costs £10 i think?) i could plug the cable modem straight into the new shiny switch? and sell both the adsl router and the crappeh 10mbit hub? ive got pleanty of cable (both cross and straight), all nics can do 100mbit, would i need anything else to make this decent?
/me hopes i wouldnt need a router for cable as the cable modem uses ethernet

You would be better off with a router in this scenario, they are under £40 plus you could convince your brother that if he wants the net.....

The Switch setup you mentioned will 99.9% NOT work. The modem wants to assign an IP to 1 device that its connected to.
This means that, when using the switch, if your lucky, it will assign an ip to one computer connected to it and ignore the rest.
With the Router, it will take the ip and allow the other computers to route through it.
Unless they have changed the modem they use this will be the case, I have heard rumours of single port modems that are acting like a router and allowing multiple connections.....

[Wolf Man]

acidrainy im going to be annoying a disagree there, your reason behind using a router are dead right, but a router for £40 will not do the job. You can get some quite nice net gear routers for around 90 ish, but you don't want to pay cheaply as the router will just be rubbish, as I well know

[acidrainy]

I'm talking about using a stand alone Router, not one with an inbuilt modem

You can pick up a 3Com stand alone for £40 and connect it to your Ethernet modem..
When your looking at £90+ you are looking at routers with inbuilt modems. They are comparable with TV's with inbuilt videos, if one thing goes the whole thing is rather pointless

Another fact is that if he goes to cable, when he gets the supplied modem, he can just plug the router in and surf away with it

Of course if he was staying with ADSL he would have to make sure that he had an ethernet adsl modem to hand for this.

[Wolf Man]

Ok, I back down you win .

[Trickle]

Originally posted by acidrainy
You can contact your ISP and have them arrange for you to get the gain upped on the line...

A gain increase wont help ADSL

As he implied that his old frog worked ok, one would assume his recent problems are router related - although he would have to test the frog again (hope he didnt sell it) to confirm that it indeed isnt a line failure issue that didnt coincidently happen around a similar time to installing the router.

[SilentDeath]

Trickle its not sold yet, but i cba to test it atm. i assumed the line either got worse around the same time, or that the adsl router just doesnt like a line as far form the exchange as i am - is there anyway for me to limit my conenction speed slightly more, like what radsl does so that the line is better? or would this need to be done from the other end?

[acidrainy]

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
Trickle its not sold yet, but i cba to test it atm. i assumed the line either got worse around the same time, or that the adsl router just doesnt like a line as far form the exchange as i am - is there anyway for me to limit my conenction speed slightly more, like what radsl does so that the line is better? or would this need to be done from the other end?

It is mainly done from the other end. Give your ISP a ring, they will be able to inform you what you can do/try to get things working again.