New wireless point and switch

Howdy all you techy type people out there :wave:

I've really got back into some self development and using my home network a lot more again. At any one time I can be streaming music from my NAS, syncronising WSUS & ePO, using ISOs across the network, running XBOX Live and accessing computers (both physical and virtual) using VNC and various consoles. This seems to have the effect of bombing out my wireless router and overloading my 8 port switch.

So basically I'm after a decent backbone switch and a decent wireless point that won't cost the earth. Gigabit would be nice if not too much and not overly fussed about N wireless, G is plenty for me at the moment.

So, any suggestions?

Cheers

gotenks1321;1291 wrote: Howdy all you techy type people out there :wave:

I've really got back into some self development and using my home network a lot more again. At any one time I can be streaming music from my NAS, syncronising WSUS & ePO, using ISOs across the network, running XBOX Live and accessing computers (both physical and virtual) using VNC and various consoles. This seems to have the effect of bombing out my wireless router and overloading my 8 port switch.

So basically I'm after a decent backbone switch and a decent wireless point that won't cost the earth. Gigabit would be nice if not too much

and not overly fussed about N wireless, G is plenty for me at the moment.

So, any suggestions?

Cheers

Netgear used to do a pretty good wireless access point - Don't know if that would be any use to you?

I've got a netgear.

I would go N personally. Apart from it being a bit more future proof, it also allows twice as much bandwidth as a G which is 54Mb/s.

If you are just using it to access the internet then a G will outperform the bandwidth of most internet connections, but if you are employing a local network as well the router has to deal with the internal traffic as well as the internet.

You can run G appliances on an N router, so you wouldn't necessarily have to upgrade your computers.

Alias;1295 wrote: Netgear used to do a pretty good wireless access point - Don't know if that would be any use to you?

Any particular model you'd recommend?

I know their older stuff was not particularly reliable and had quite a few issues but then I'm going on Enterprise stuff as not really used their home bits :dunno:

CJJ;1302 wrote: I've got a netgear.

I would go N personally. Apart from it being a bit more future proof, it also allows twice as much bandwidth as a G which is 54Mb/s.

If you are just using it to access the internet then a G will outperform the bandwidth of most internet connections, but if you are employing a local network as well the router has to deal with the internal traffic as well as the internet.

You can run G appliances on an N router, so you wouldn't necessarily have to upgrade your computers.

Thanks Clive. Do you mind me asking which one you've got?

It's definitely the internal traffic that's causing mine to fall over, 4MB/s internet isn't quite up to the task yet :lol:

Ha ha

Just checked mine and it is a D-Link DSL-2740b.

I forgot that I ditched the Netgear when I upgraded to N.

CJJ;1304 wrote: Ha ha

Just checked mine and it is a D-Link DSL-2740b.

I forgot that I ditched the Netgear when I upgraded to N.

:lol:

This one?

gotenks1321;1303 wrote: Any particular model you'd recommend?

I know their older stuff was not particularly reliable and had quite a few issues but then I'm going on Enterprise stuff as not really used their home bits :dunno:



Thanks Clive. Do you mind me asking which one you've got?

It's definitely the internal traffic that's causing mine to fall over, 4MB/s internet isn't quite up to the task yet :lol:

I was using one similar to this: http://www.netgear.co.uk/wireless_access_points_WPN802.php

It was purely used for Directors to connect to the network in the boardroom, so it wasn't swamped with traffic, but it was nice to work with - Never had any problems

Thats the one.

Not a very flattering review, but it does OK for us.

Interestingly though, it lists these speeds as "dismal"

For wireless performance testing we called upon a 1.6GHz Fujitsu Siemens notebook running Windows XP SP2 and installed D-Link’s RangeBooster N DWA-645 PC Card in it. Running the Iometer utility over a two metre open link to a Supermicro Pentium D 3.2GHz PC on the LAN saw an average raw read throughput of 60Mbps – around the same as for D-Link’s N650 router. We then activated WPA encryption and saw Iometer return only 42Mbps.

While the same test on a more expensive router comes up slower and it is impressed with the results. Not very good reporting me thinks.

To test general wireless performance we called in a 1.6GHz Fujitsu Siemens notebook running Windows XP SP2 and fitted with Netgear’s RangeMax WPN511 wireless PC Card. With a line of sight connection of one metre the open source Iometer reported a very respectable 41.9Mbit/sec over an unsecured link. Performance didn’t fall by much with encryption activated as a WPA-PSK link only dropped down to 37.6Mb/sec. Netgear’s RangeMax technology makes its mark as testing in a residential environment saw some good results. While Iometer was running we moved the notebook down one floor and put three brick walls in the way and saw performance drop by 21 per cent for an unsecured link and 30 per cent for a WPA-PSK link.

There are better cards, as we early adopted draft N, so it is worth doing some research and finding the best one for your needs.