More ethernet ports - how?

[Lowe]

Networking types, a word in your collective ears if I may?

We have Virgin Broadband at home, with a Superhub type router. This is unfortunately stuck right on the front of the house, and it's not convenient at the moment to move it anywhere else. Wireless reception on one side of the house is fine, but the other side of the house is extremely poor. For example, the living room (on the back of the house) has virtually no reception at all and so my PS3 really struggles if connected via WiFi.

To get around this I bought some Homeplugs and wired the PS3 up. All good, until I got an Apple TV for Fathers day. I'm now either having to switch the cable between the two devices or struggle trying to get wireless reception again.

So, I need more ports on the end of my home plug. I guess 4 would cover me for anything else I'm likely to buy for the living room. At work I've got an old ADSL router which a colleague borrowed for an experiment, would I be able to somehow bodge this to work if I got it back? If not, what are my options?

Cheers!

[Unique]

a cheap switch would do the trick

my superhub is in one room, serving a bunch of stuff via ethernet and a cable running to a homeplug carrying the network to the living room where i have a switch that the pc, streamer, consoles etc are plugged into. the one i use cost me only £5

the wifi signal i get is crap too. my downstairs neighbours wifi signal on the virgin netgear router is far stronger than the signal from my own flat

i did try my old belkin router as that had wifi so would have been a great extender but it was causing other problems and i couldn't get it to work properly. you might get the same with the adsl router, or it might work fine

[GoNz0]

get the router, disable dhcp on it and use the 4 port switch on it, the superhub will take care of everything else.

the belkin should work fine so long as dhcp is disabled as you only need 1 dhcp server on the network and in your case its the superhub.

if you do use the old belkin you can clone the SSID of the superhub so any wireless device will lock onto the strongest signal, but you need the same security as well to pull it off.

[Lowe]

if you do use the old belkin you can clone the SSID of the superhub so any wireless device will lock onto the strongest signal, but you need the same security as well to pull it off.

That sounds ideal since the next problem I've found is that if I'm streaming something from an iDevice to the AppleTV it's still slow since the iDevice doesn't have a strong signal. With a wireless router in the room it'll at least get a decent amount of strength. I'll grab the router on Monday and give it a crack. Thanks for all the help, much appreciation!

[Agent]

I think I've got a spare switch kicking around. Shout if you want to try things with it.

[Dareos]

i swear i need this stickied

first, change the channels on the hub if you havent already, and get it out of 300Mbps, it sucks, get it on 145

if that doesnt work, use modem mode and a wireless router, other than that you can add a switch bud

The hub has gigabit ports on it, so its possible to use a gigabit switch and cat5e or cat6, theres a tplink switch about 12quid on amazon that would do the job.

[KeyboardDemon]

The simplest way is to get a 4 port PowerLine switch, just make sure it matches the same speed as your existing PowerLine units, ie. match AV200mb/s to AV200mb/s or just upgrade it to something like this.

[Agent]

The simplest way is to get a 4 port PowerLine switch, just make sure it matches the same speed as your existing PowerLine units, ie. match AV200mb/s to AV200mb/s or just upgrade it to something like this.

That's ~£120. Just get a cheap switch / router if wireless is needed and plug it in to the existing homeplug - done.

[KeyboardDemon]

That's ~£120. Just get a cheap switch / router if wireless is needed and plug it in to the existing homeplug - done.

That was the first model I found on Scan, there are other models by companies like Devolo and even Western Digital make something along these lines, if you'll pardon the pun.

The Devolo dLAN 200 AV Wireless N Starter Kit gives you four wired ports and also creates an additional wifi access point for around £80 to £90. I use a NETGEAR AV200 4 Port PowerLine switch myself, and also have several other computers connected over PowerLine ethernet around my house, this has proved to be really reliable for me and has worked out much better than running a switch from a single PowerLine point as the switch needed power so I lost two sockets to do what I can now do with just one electrical socket. It is worth remembering that PowerLine connectors like to be plugged directly into the wall socket and not run from 4 gang extension cables or multi plug surge protectors.

[Lowe]

Just a quick update, used the old router, disabled the DHCP and now it's working flawlessly. WiFi at full strength in the living room, and the Apple TV/PS3 are connected with cables. Magic.

[KeyboardDemon]

Nice. A solution that works for you. Glad you got it sorted.

[Dareos]

nice one Lowe, free solutions are better than paid ones

[GoNz0]

would you mind phoning my wife and telling her for once im right !