I am in the proud possession of a 10/100 Fast Ethernet Switch, but I’ll be ding danged if I know what to do with it. I already have a hub. I guess I’ll just replace the hub with it. They are supposed to be better.
We have HiNet ADSL that says we can connect two computers to it at once, but my wife wants more than that (don’t ask why) and the guy at the store told here to buy this thing. She wants me to hook it up. We have four computers in the house. (Again, why.)
Anybody know anything about it? It’s no big deal.
[quote=“Richardm”]I am in the proud possession of a 10/100 Fast Ethernet Switch, but I’ll be ding danged if I know what to do with it. I already have a hub. I guess I’ll just replace the hub with it. They are supposed to be better.
We have HiNet ADSL that says we can connect two computers to it at once, but my wife wants more than that (don’t ask why) and the guy at the store told here to buy this thing. She wants me to hook it up. We have four computers in the house. (Again, why.)
Anybody know anything about it? It’s no big deal.[/quote]
Richard
It is just another name for a hub.
If your current one has sufficient sockets for the number of PC’s you already have then it would appear to be wated money, unless your old one is 10mb only.
A hub connects all computers at all times, every signal goes to every computer and the computer filters out what it doesn’t want. In a switch, it only goes to the computer it is intended for, For 2 or 3 computers it doesn’t make a difference, but it you have more than that talking to each other, a hub would get bogged down.
Using a switch or a hub you can connect to Hinet twice, and each computer would get it’s own IP from hinet. Hubs and switches are just dumb boxes that send signals to many computers without changing them.
If you want more than 2 computers you need to have something a bit clevererer, because each computer needs it’s own IP (Like each telephone needs it’s own number), for that you need a router that gives you one IP to the internet, but many IPs on your home network, and it translates between them (using NAT=network address translation). While the router is changing IPs, it can also do firewalling.
If you’ve got a model number or something I could see if I can look up which one you have,
Simple.
Have I told you how quantum computers work by doing simultaneous calculations in parallel universes ?
It’s a DES-1005D from D-Link. I don’t think it does the quantum stuff.
[quote=“Richardm”]It’s a DES-1005D from D-Link.[/quote]It’s just a switch, plug all your computers and modem into it and you can use the internet from any of them, just 2 at a time or whatever hinet lets you.
Routers are difficult anyway.
I’ve gone all these years without knowing the difference between a hub, a switch and a router. Thanks Matthew!
Hubs and switches do the same thing really, routers are a lot more complicated. Imagine you have a network with 4 computers: A,B,C,D.
In a hub, if computer A wants to talk to computer B, the signal is sent to B,C & D. This would stop C and D talking to each other, or at least slow it down a lot.
In a switch a connection is made between A+B, and another seperate connection between C+D, so they can talk without interfering with each other. You need at least 4 computers for that to be an issue. In the above examples you can replace 1 computer with a modem.
A router does all that and more, it can deal out IPs on your own network (DCHP), let those IPs share 1 internet IP (NAT) and be a filewall and more.
You smart!
I just upgraded from Chinese Windows 98 to English Windows XP and I haven’t hooked up the switch yet, but my XP says I have degraded internet capability because the network did not assign me an IP. It seems as fast as it was before, so I think it’s not really a problem. Or is it?
You would have a degraded internet capability without an IP, it wouldn’t work at all. But it does, so you do have one, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
It might mean you’ll have problems sharing files with your other computers. For that you’ll have to ask someone wiser than I.
I’ve had that error message too, Richard. I just recently installed XP on my computer. Tried everything I could to see what was causing the problem. In the end, it’s not affecting my internet connection at all, so I’ve ignored that message. Annoying, though.
[quote=“Richardm”]You smart!
I just upgraded from Chinese Windows 98 to English Windows XP and I haven’t hooked up the switch yet, but my XP says I have degraded internet capability because the network did not assign me an IP. It seems as fast as it was before, so I think it’s not really a problem. Or is it?[/quote]
What a nice message from Microsoft. It’s probably better to not even list a warning like that. What good is an error message or warning if people can’t figure out what it really means or how to fix it?
Switch to the switch. 
Hubs aren’t really good at letting multiple computers communicate at the same time. Like what’s been said, switches can separate or segment communication between 2 network devices (computer to computer, computer to dsl/cable modem) so multiple devices talk to each other.
A hub isn’t able to do that, so lets say 2 computers or devices try to send information somewhere, packets can collide.
If you need wireless, get a wireless router. They all have built-in switches. You can get them for 2k NT or less these days. Reliable ones will cost more. Perhaps it’s not necessarily quality, any router has software. The lesser companies aren’t quite as good fixing the bugs. I like Apple’s Airport Extreme. Other than that, I’d get Linksys (a Cisco company). You can get Linksys stuff in Hong Kong.