network switches question

[silverdale]

I have upstairs mainly due to poor WiFi but I noticted a bit of freezing on the iptv (hard wired) when my sons on live gaming (also hard wired). I run a network switch downstairs and one upstairs (direct from router) both are only quite old 10/100mbps switches a friend was chucking out.
Would upgrading to gigabit switches work any better or help with in anyway with the odd freezing ?. When he's finished it things improve 10 fold. I'm only on 100meg line which I thought would be ample but I didn't add in Covid and boredom so would upping it be the solution ?

 

[Ferret]

I dont see a gigabit switch helping since you current switch could handle all your 100meg line.

Without your son gaming try speed tests on the kit attached to the switches that will give you an indication as to if the switches are upto it.

 

[jfish]

as your BB is 100 Mb/s then a gigabit switch wont make any difference

how are the switches connected to the main router, via home plugs or ethernet cable

 

[Spectre]

Search for the WAN to LAN throughput of the router, it might be under 100Mb.

What do speed tests say?

 

[silverdale]

I'll check the speeds next time he's on it. Both switches are hard wired. I'm thinking of upping the bband speed. Wifes contantly on Netflix, he's gaming of a night and the other one's hammering the net while the bill payer here watches Norman Collier style football, t"ats!!.


And if not for the speed would the gigabit not improve the actual bband signal I dont mean speed up just cleaner not bottle neck it. at the mo I'm using an old Belkin F5D5131-8

 

[jfish]

are all clients/devices connected hard wired or wifi

what the spread of devices to the switches and routers

 

[Ferret]

You want to test the speeds to each devices with nothing else using the broandband first.

That will establish if you current switches and cable are capable of your 100mb broadband. Also test your broadband speed on speed net Virgin have been flakey for a while for a lot of areas.

So you have

Netflix
Gaming
Internet on a PC Youtube or something maybe ?
And then your IPTV

Might be getting close to 100MB well no you should be just about able to cope if you are actually getting 100mb to start with.

 

[Spectre]

Might be getting close to 100MB well no you should be just about able to cope if you are actually getting 100mb to start with.

For months after an upgrade I didn't notice my old router could only do 60Mb .

 

[Ferret]

For months after an upgrade I didn't notice my old router could only do 60Mb .

My brother upgraded to 200mb from 100mb, he could not work out why he was still only getting 100mb till i pointed out that was all his router was capable of He spent weeks ringing Virgin

 

[Spectre]

My brother upgraded to 200mb from 100mb, he could not work out why he was still only getting 100mb till i pointed out that was all his router was capable of He spent weeks ringing Virgin

Yep, I complained to VM on their forum (can't show my face on there again) as my speed was half wat it used to be. My SOHO level router had an uptime 0f 1600 days and the counters were astronomical. One reboot later...

 

[silverdale]

Netflix
Gaming
Internet on a PC YouTube or something maybe ?
And then your IPTV

Might be getting close to 100MB well no you should be just about able to cope if you are actually getting 100mb to start with.

I've got to say, It's not all the time everyone's hammering the bband but it tends to be when I'm friggin watching something of a night. It could cope with it all before this lock-down but the missus is into all these bloody box sets and my lad getting back into gaming out of boredom which ain't helped. I might just have to bite the bullet and go up to 200mb and get a couple of gigabit switches.
I'll test later on

 

[Spectre]

I've got to say, It's not all the time everyone's hammering the bband but it tends to be when I'm friggin watching something of a night. It could cope with it all before this lock-down but the missus is into all these bloody box sets and my lad getting back into gaming out of boredom which ain't helped. I might just have to bite the bullet and go up to 200mb and get a couple of gigabit switches.
I'll test later on

What router do you have?

 

[jfish]

with wifi its collision avoidance and its half duplex, so devices are fighting to grab the bandwidth especially when streaming content

I just did quick test on my laptop over wifi

 

[silverdale]

What router do you have?

Hub 3.0 white job

 

[janobi]

Easiest thing to do is create 2 vlans, and rate limit your kids vlan. That is if the device supports vlans, but i'd imagine it would.

As others have said, gigabit switch won't make a difference, as you're only passing 100Mbps traffic. So the speed of the port will be at 100Mbps, so the port could do upto that speed only. With a gbps port, it can handle upto that speed, but as the BB isn't getting that you won't notice a difference.

I've never configured a belkin switch, they may well be dumb switches, so you can't do a lot with them. Check if you can setup vlans on them, and put yourself in say vlan 10 and everyone else in vlan 20. Then set the speed on vlan 10 to 100mbps, and the vlan 20 to say 10mbps. You could do other funky stuff lias well but again not sure if it's supported on the device.

 

[copex]

upgrade you switches to gigabit, get a wifi AP and connect it to the upstairs switch. this will improve your network,as long as the cable between the router is not to long <30mtrs you should get gigabit between the switches, you will be able to tell this by the light colour on the switch.

before you do the swap download and run some LAN speed test software ( i normally use ipref ) so you can see the improvement to your network before and after.

i know it will not speed up your internet but it is the throughput and latency you are looking to improve. unmanaged switches are cheep as chips its a no brainier