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Need help/suggestion on how to set up home (wired/wireless?)

post #1 of 17
4/22/08 at 11:22am
Thread Starter 
Just purchased a home a couple months ago and renovating it currently. It is not wired by any means other than a couple coax cables for cable and a random phone line here or there (not even sure it works). No idea yet where I'm going to locate the computers vs the audio/video devices.

With technology getting better and better, I'm debating if I should just go the wireless route, or hard wire some cat 6 cable into my home to a router then to cable modem.

Items that would be used:
Yamaha AVR 3800 (ethernet line for internet broadcasts)
PS3
Tosh HDDVD A2 (hard wire only I believe?)
Dell Laptop
Mac G4 desktop (hard wire only)

Is it worth the time, effort, and $$ to run wire through the house for the AVR, PS3, A2, and laptop? Or get a wireless router or receiver for each device to simplify things? I'm a network newb, so please forgive..

I notice in my current living location, that the wireless router and my laptop don't work too well together, ie, I hard wire it to the net, and get super fast downloads of webpages,.. go wireless, and the speed is cut in half. I don't want my equipment to get hung up if a wireless device cannot handle whats needed to support the devices.

Ideas? Suggestions?
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post #2 of 17
4/22/08 at 12:22pm
LocoRob -
I believe the concensus is if you can hardwire it, hardwire it. It is "almost" foolproof and relatively easy to troubleshoot. That being said, numerous people have gotten WiFi to work throughout their home with releative ease...ymmv of course. I run both in my environment, and have had some good success...

Dave
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post #3 of 17
4/22/08 at 1:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slarsky View Post

LocoRob -
I believe the concensus is if you can hardwire it, hardwire it. It is "almost" foolproof and relatively easy to troubleshoot. That being said, numerous people have gotten WiFi to work throughout their home with releative ease...ymmv of course. I run both in my environment, and have had some good success...

Dave

Agree with that. If you can wire, do so. As for what to wire, I would have at least 2 cat-6 wires to each room plus a coax (or two, for satellite). You may want more if you *know* you're going to have more equipment connected at a given location. For example, if you are going to plug all 5 of those devices in at the same location, you'll want 5 jacks.

Keep in mind you can use Cat-6 for phone as well, so one way to save money is to run all Cat-6 and then use some of the jacks for phone instead of ethernet.

IMO, wireless is most useful for portable devices like a laptop. If the device is staying put, wired is faster, more reliable, and (arguably) less expensive.
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post #4 of 17
4/22/08 at 6:28pm
I would also add wired is more secure. No worries about someone figuring out a hack to your encryption algorithm used in your wireless network. Also, wireless won't catch wired networks in sheer speed. Even the fastest N wireless setups I've seen don't even break the 100 Mbit barrier and the tests were done under ideal conditions. Not to mention the whole wild wild west nature of the 2.4 GHz band.
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post #5 of 17
4/23/08 at 6:25am
Thread Starter 
Ok thanks guys! Guess I will have to get a spool of cat6 and some of those tool less rj45 terminators they have now (don't have a tool for crimping). Just have to find something less than 1000' they sell at monoprice...

The most difficult part is going to try and figure out where to put the wiring as I really don't know the location of my equipment yet until I get all the furnishings in, after painting, after the floors are back down, etc

which type of cat6 should I use to run through the walls, joists, and in attic? I see there are plenum, non plenum solid and stranded, etc etc.
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post #6 of 17
4/23/08 at 12:19pm
Solid is used for permanent installations; stranded for patch cables. All solid should be rated for in-wall use. I generally buy pre-made patch cables-- they're cheap, and terminating RJ-45 plugs can be a pain.
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post #7 of 17
4/23/08 at 1:24pm
Thread Starter 
STP or UTP and for what reason vs for what avs would use?
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post #8 of 17
4/23/08 at 9:19pm
STP is shielded twisted pair. UTP is unshielded twisted pair. I find it is generally ok to run UTP unless you have some serious EMI/RFI issues.
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post #9 of 17
4/28/08 at 12:42pm
Thread Starter 
another question for my configuration:

Given the devices I want to connect to the net listed above, I will likely run all the cabeling down to the basement, or maybe into the attic... what is the best way to connect all the runs of cat6?

Not familiar with patch panels, what they are used for, vs network hubs. Seems like a network hub may be easier, and BB has a sale on them right now...

Also, if running a patch panel, is it as easy has plugging the cable modem, run a line down/up to the patch panel, and all other lines ran will have access to the net?
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post #10 of 17
4/28/08 at 2:26pm
LocoRob - go for a switch, not a hub. You plug in all connecting patch cords into the switch and VIOLA, everything routes accordingly...

Can't speak for the Yamaha, but all others should be just fine through a switch and out on your router/modem...

Cable Modem <=> Router <=> Switch <=> Peripherals...
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post #11 of 17
4/28/08 at 3:27pm
A patch panel is for terminating your cable, and then you use pre-made patch cables
to connect to your switch. This is much easier than trying to terminate your cable with
RG45 connectors.A patch panel is for terminating your cable, and then you use pre-made patch cables to connect to your switch. This is much easier than trying to terminate your cable with RG45 connectors.
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post #12 of 17
5/8/08 at 11:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slarsky View Post

Cable Modem <=> Router <=> Switch <=> Peripherals...

Do you need both a router and a switch? I thought you only needed one or the other.

thanks,
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post #13 of 17
5/8/08 at 6:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by benson peculiar View Post

Do you need both a router and a switch? I thought you only needed one or the other.

thanks,

It depends. When you talk about consumer grade routers, all consumer grade routers I've seen are combo units. What this means is that these routers also have a built in switch. The number of ports varies from 4 up to 8 typically. Now you have the ones supplied by your ISP which are modem/router combos which might only come with one LAN port.

Typically you add a switch to a consumer grade router when you run out of ports on the router.
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post #14 of 17
5/8/08 at 6:04pm
Thanks for the reply.

So then if you were to use a pro switch (like a ProCurve or the like), would you need a router in front of it?
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post #15 of 17
5/8/08 at 6:19pm
For your typical home ISP service, yes, you still need a router in front of a switch. Your ISP is only going to provide one IP address to your connection which can only work with one device (ie one MAC address.) At my job, we have a T1 line from our provider but have 5 static IPs given to us on our circuit. In this situation, I used a switch to allow various devices to be wired into this one connection to utilize all 5 static IPs.

The only thing a switch like the Pro Curve would provide is managed capability. What a managed switch will provide you is the ability to set up VLANs (802.1q), do aggregated/ether channel links, quality of service, etc, etc. All of these services deal with what is called layer 2 protocols. As a slight off topic, a hybrid switch exists called a layer 3 switch which combines the functionality of a layer 2 switch and the packet routing capabilities of a router. Layer 3 switches provide lots of flexibility but still lack some features which are still exclusive to routers.
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post #16 of 17
5/8/08 at 6:35pm
Ok, that makes a ton more sense. Even with the all this talk of different layers I think I've got it down.

So essentially:

Normal home network = modem <=> router <=> consumer type switch (if you run out of ports on your router) <=> peripherals.

Since most routers I've seen only have 3-5 ports on them, and if I wanted to hook up a couple computers, 2-3 video game consoles, and who knows what else, I'd be in the market for a switch to get me there.

Thanks for the info! I feel slightly less lost!
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post #17 of 17
5/8/08 at 7:22pm
No problem. Glad to help.

Yep, you got the jist of it. The other fluff was due to an assumption I made because you mentioned the HP ProCurve line of network devices.
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