Forumite Members › General Topics › Tech › PC Talk › Wiring the house for phones, internet and media.
- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 8 months ago by
JayCeeDee.
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July 21, 2019 at 5:32 pm #35056
Hi Guys – The wife wants me to move a couple of phone points which need a hole drilled in an internal ‘outside’ wall plus a run up into the loft and down into the hallway. I thought I’d do a bit of a re-org in conjunction with that and wire in the TV, Sky Box and Now TV box in order to speed up the current ‘laggy’ WiFi connection and occasional “Insufficient Bandwidth” problem on Amazon Prime Video, despite Netflix (occasional drop-outs ), You Tube and Sky downloads having no problems.
It’s also time to retire the WiFi booster in the hall and replace it with my ( currently stored ) Ubiquiti Access Point.
Following Dave’s glowing report for Google Drawings, I used that to produce this below.
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/169KYMAvFQJ6oMx3UiOlvpw3Eaj2o4DOgtCyrKhVWCXs/edit?usp=sharing
Looking at the switch I have 2 options:- THIS and THIS.
Both are Gigabit, so more than fast enough for my 35MB Fibre, but I don’t understand the ‘unmanaged’ part and whether it makes a difference.
Which is most suitable for the task? Any views on layout/switch options appreciated.
PS. I’ve had to include a link as I’ve been frustrated by Google Drawings, Foxit Reader, Forumite and many other workarounds to get the picture into this post.
I realise that my knowledge stems from a starting place of hardware, but I thought I was reasonably proficient, albeit at a broad but basic level, with software!!!?
July 21, 2019 at 8:55 pm #35060I’ll let someone else (Dave?) comment on the setup JCD, but I have the TP-Link SG105 , in fact I have two of them and they have worked fine for some time now. The Netgear is obvs more expensive and I don’t see what benefit that gives over the SG105, although I will accept contradiction. As for putting drawings and/or images into Forumite: I have a procedure that works. I use Open Office drawing and Irfan View Image editing, but any photo/drawing software should handle it.
I turn a drawing into an image by copying into Irfan View, save it as an image in Documents and click the Insert/Edit Image in the Forumite bar above (Mountain icon) to Browse to the image saved, click Open. Wait a short while until the details fill the Source box, click OK and the image comes up. Click Image and resize as necessary.
Will you have a future need for more ports in the switch? If so, maybe the 8-port switch would be better for you. Difference between Managed and Unmanaged switches: I used a link something like this to guide me, and found that a managed switch was beyond what I needed.
Not saying you won’t have a need for a Managed switch, I would expect someone with more knowledge than me to guide you there. Good luck mate!
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.July 21, 2019 at 10:00 pm #35067Unmanaged switches are plug and play devices, they do what they do and are all you need in most environments.
There are several levels of “managed”. My TL-SG1024DE is described by TP-Link as “Easy Smart” and provides basic network monitoring, traffic prioritization and VLAN features. It also allows you to aggregate up to 4 ports into a single one (with the correct hardware at the other end) or as fail over. So with a high end Synology NAS with 4 x Ethernet ports I could give it what appears to be a single 4GB feed,
The Netgear ProSafe I use at the charity is described as “Smart Managed” adds routing and more detailed monitoring and QoS. There’s no way I’d have specified that myself, but a 3rd party looks after their internet connection and SIP phone system and it’s their switch of choice. And so it goes on up the scale to the Corporate Cisco kit that can be programmed.
So, unmanaged it is and a metal case is indication of a better build. I like the TP-Link SG10x series and would go for a TL-SG108 for £20 as it’s only £4 more than the 5 port.
July 21, 2019 at 11:44 pm #35077Thanks Dave. I see now what unmanaged/managed means. That’s facilities I won’t be needing. It’s just to feed a direct access for streaming rather than the wifi links I use atm.
Thinking about it our front room ( other side of a wall from where the Master Socket, router and switch will be ) is a spare room with a TV in it, so a spare port or two for that might come in handy, so I’ll go for the 8-port TP.
Bob, the biggest problem I had was from Forumite – I was clicking the Insert/Edit Image button and showing it where the file was located on my PC, but it would Import the image and display it, then the screen did a refresh and the whole damn lot disappeared, together with Forum choice and Topic Title. That occurred for pdf’s, jpg’s etc. In fact, prior to that, I’d written out the post ( luckily pasted in from a Word document ) and when I hit the Insert/Edit Image button the dialogue box came up, it refreshed and the box and text then disappeared, leaving me with the empty Reply box!!
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