Network bottlenecking

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

Suspended / Banned
Messages
10,765
Name
Jonathan
Edit My Images
Yes
(I know there are some very experienced people here and would be very grateful if people could dumb down advice when answering - networks totally baffle me.....)

I have the following in my house.....

Virgin Fibre in the living room
BT Whole Home mesh.

Internet comes in via the fibre, goes into the mesh and there are 3 disks around the house. It works fine with decent wifi everywhere except for the conservatory which I can live without.

In my "study" I have a desktop PC with no wifi. So I wired it into the back of a Mesh dish and it runs really nicely. Depending which app you use it's either 250 or 450 Mbps on a bad day.

Recently I <cough> invested in an XBox Series X which is going to live in the study. I dug out some old TPLink home plugs I had so....Virgin Router into HP, HP sockets feed PC and XBox. These are the 2000 powerline version. The problem is the speed drops to a "pitiful" 150meg (I know, first world problems...). WiFi on the XBox is terrible - 80meg with the dish right next to it.

If I plug the XBox into the dish I get 450meg. PC over the Powerline runs at 180ish.

So.....what's my most cost effective way of making them both run at a "decent" speed without laying cables? Do I need a hub, better powerline or simply another dish? I don't play games online so am more concerned with down/upload than the lowest possible ping.

(BTW I've tried a long ethernet cable through the house right into the Virgin hub - it's no faster than plugging into the mesh).
 
To clarify - this is a question about network speed between devices in your home network, or over the internet? If about internet speed, what is the max speed you get when connected directly to the fiber?
 
Speed over the internet.

Max speed should be >550 but in reality I never see more than 450 even wired directly into the hub.
 
First question: can the XBox and PC both sit near your study Mesh box ?

If so, then wiring both the PC and XBox into it directly sounds to be most likely to work. If you only have one wired network socket on your Mesh box then a small (4 port) Gigabit network switch will sort that out for £20 or so.
 
Last edited:
minimaltoo said:
First question: can the XBox and PC both sit near your study Mesh box ?
Click to expand...

Yes. They are both within a 2m cable of it. However there's only one socket.

minimaltoo said:
If so, then wiring both the PC and XBox into it directly sounds to be most likely to work. If you only have one wired network socket on your Mesh box then a small (4 port) Gigabit network switch will that out for £20 or so.
Click to expand...

Sounds a good option. Would you have a recommendation? (I've never understood the difference between a switch and a hub and probably don't need to but I'm out of my depth choosing something)
 
The distinction is kind of moot these days as Hub's are very old tech: they basically share the signal on one socket with all of the others. Switches work out which other device you're sending data to, and only pass data between those sockets, so you get better overall data rates as you only see data that's meant for you and others can have their own, full-speed sessions going on at the same time.

This used to be horrendously expensive as you need compute inside a Switch to work out who's talking to who, but you can get away with dumb electronic links inside a Hub. That's a massive over-simplicifcation in places (more detail on request !), but these days compute is so cheap it doesn't make sense for Hub's anymore.

Note the above only applies if you're talking in pure Networking terms - if a Marketing bod has been involved then what they call a Hub is anyone's guess !

For your needs, it doesn't really matter that much what device you get - I'm partial to the industrial design of the Netgear metal cased units, but this TPLink one is cheap on Amazon and I've used other TPLink stuff and liked it well enough:

TP-Link TL-SG105S, 5 Port Gigabit Ethernet Network Switch, Ethernet Splitter, Hub, Desktop and Wall-Mounting, Sturdy Metal, Fanless, Plug and Play, Energy-Saving: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Buy
www.amazon.co.uk

You don't need to go crazy on the cables: for the data rates you're talking about any Cat5 compatible one is fine - don't worry about picking a Cat5e or Cat6 specially, but any of those three types (5/5e/6) will work perfectly fine and are interchangeable for this task.
 
minimaltoo said:
The distinction is kind of moot these days as Hub's are very old tech: they basically share the signal on one socket with all of the others. Switches work out which other device you're sending data to, and only pass data between those sockets, so you get better overall data rates as you only see data that's meant for you and others can have their own, full-speed sessions going on at the same time.

This used to be horrendously expensive as you need compute inside a Switch to work out who's talking to who, but you can get away with dumb electronic links inside a Hub. That's a massive over-simplicifcation in places (more detail on request !), but these days compute is so cheap it doesn't make sense for Hub's anymore.

Note the above only applies if you're talking in pure Networking terms - if a Marketing bod has been involved then what they call a Hub is anyone's guess !

For your needs, it doesn't really matter that much what device you get - I'm partial to the industrial design of the Netgear metal cased units, but this TPLink one is cheap on Amazon and I've used other TPLink stuff and liked it well enough:

TP-Link TL-SG105S, 5 Port Gigabit Ethernet Network Switch, Ethernet Splitter, Hub, Desktop and Wall-Mounting, Sturdy Metal, Fanless, Plug and Play, Energy-Saving: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Buy
www.amazon.co.uk

You don't need to go crazy on the cables: for the data rates you're talking about any Cat5 compatible one is fine - don't worry about picking a Cat5e or Cat6 specially, but any of those three types (5/5e/6) will work perfectly fine and are interchangeable for this task.
Click to expand...

That's great - thank very much.

I'll order one and hopefully all my very much 1st world problems will vanish :)
 
if you stick to wired and all your ports/switch are 1000mb/1gb then crazy speed, a lot of routers are only 100mb still though.
the limit is pretty much always read and write from storage especially if moving data over your network.
 
Mr Bump said:
if you stick to wired and all your ports/switch are 1000mb/1gb then crazy speed, a lot of routers are only 100mb still though.
the limit is pretty much always read and write from storage especially if moving data over your network.
Click to expand...
The router isn't going to be 100mb if he's on full fiber which by the speeds they must be, though virgin confuses me.
I'm actually held back by gigabit ethernet at the minute and need to make the jump to 2.5Gb or higher.
 
robj20 said:
The router isn't going to be 100mb if he's on full fiber which by the speeds they must be, though virgin confuses me.
I'm actually held back by gigabit ethernet at the minute and need to make the jump to 2.5Gb or higher.
Click to expand...

I have Virgin m600. It was m500 but they upgraded me to m600 recently which runs at "up to" 636 meg. So a bit less than their "full" fibre but goo enough for most things. I've seen some weird references to the sockets though - people seem to reckon plugging a games console into socket 4 gets far better performance than 1-3.
 
Your doing yourself a disservice using WiFi and especially power lines on such a decent speed service. Power lines are especially poor solutions IMO they rarely get anywhere near there advertised speeds.
Honestly use cable where ever possible, it's some effort but it's easy to do with a bit of thinking outside the box regards routing the cables.
Really bugs me that Virgin don't know the difference between coax and fiber. Lol
 
robj20 said:
Your doing yourself a disservice using WiFi and especially power lines on such a decent speed service. Power lines are especially poor solutions IMO they rarely get anywhere near there advertised speeds.
Click to expand...

You're right of course - long term plan would be to run cables down the outside of the house and connect the living room and study with cat 6 or similar.

The fact is I don't *need* a connection that fast. My wife's "study" only gets around 160meg over the wifi but we've never bothered sorting it because when she logs into the work's VPN it won't go over 40. But when I added it up, the stuff I needed (M200 + TV + mobile) cost about £60 a month and I got a deal on m5/600 + TV + Movies + Sport + mobile for a shade over £70 with £250 cashback. Over 2 years it's about the same cost so I figured it was a good option. It would just be nice to see a game downloading at the fastest speed Microsoft allow. The day I got the XBox, I hit the network for about 3/4 TB.

It's one reason why I was keen to try the homeplugs - I'm conscious that with that input speed, 3 computers + Xbox + lots of Smart chatter can swamp the wifi.

gramps said:
I've got one of these and it works great + great price. :)
Click to expand...

#Ordered :)
 
UPDATE: bought the exact switch recommended by @minimaltoo - 2mins to install, rebooted computer and now both computer and XBox are hitting around 400 Mbps.

Thanks for the help.

And yes, in the summer I'll be back to ask about running external ethernet......
 
minimaltoo said:
For your needs, it doesn't really matter that much what device you get - I'm partial to the industrial design of the Netgear metal cased units, but this TPLink one is cheap on Amazon and I've used other TPLink stuff and liked it well enough:

TP-Link TL-SG105S, 5 Port Gigabit Ethernet Network Switch, Ethernet Splitter, Hub, Desktop and Wall-Mounting, Sturdy Metal, Fanless, Plug and Play, Energy-Saving: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Buy
www.amazon.co.uk
Click to expand...

I also have one of these, used in exactly the way the OP is needing (now doing) - plugged into the ethernet port of a mesh unit (a TP-Link Deco in my case), feeding the Wii Switch, TV, Blue-Ray, etc.
To think of the hassle I used to face when first working with networks in the 90's - 10Mb Ethernet using BNC connectors in peer-to-peer. It's so much easier and faster these days!
 
JonathanRyan said:
And yes, in the summer I'll be back to ask about running external ethernet......
Click to expand...

Sky ran an external ehthernet cable outside my sisters house as the router is in the dinning room and the main tv is in the lounge.
I've never done any external ethernet cabling, makes me wonder is standard Cate 5e / 6 is weather proof.
 
hashcake said:
Sky ran an external ehthernet cable outside my sisters house as the router is in the dinning room and the main tv is in the lounge.
I've never done any external ethernet cabling, makes me wonder is standard Cate 5e / 6 is weather proof.
Click to expand...
Standard cable isn't, and will degrade over time.
You can get weatherproofed cable for use in external runs (hopefully they used that!)
 
hashcake said:
Sky ran an external ehthernet cable outside my sisters house as the router is in the dinning room and the main tv is in the lounge.
I've never done any external ethernet cabling, makes me wonder is standard Cate 5e / 6 is weather proof.
Click to expand...

I have had cat5 running outside for years as long as its decent and doesnt get nipped it will last a fair few years, extreme heat and cold will crack the outsode layer over years mind.
 
Faldrax said:
Standard cable isn't, and will degrade over time.
You can get weatherproofed cable for use in external runs (hopefully they used that!)
Click to expand...

I'd wouldn't like to guess - are they doing it properly because it'd be mad to do this as a day job and not use externally rated stuff, or are the installers subcontractors getting paid by the number of callouts, and so going back in 18 months to replace it is an easy win ?

Back in the '90's I saw a cable TV installer throw a cable over the roof of a mid-terrace house and just chuck a couple of clips onto the wall as high as they could reach, presumably just to avoid having to run it down the shared alleyway and use a few more clips...

JonathanRyan said:
And yes, in the summer I'll be back to ask about running external ethernet......
Click to expand...

If you're doing it DIY then there's drip loops to learn about alongside minimum bend radiuses, and you can also consider the 'additional expense' of running a PVC pipe down the wall and dropping the (external rated) cable inside that - if you're on a south facing wall then more UV protection is a good thing, and a pipe is handy if you want to shove a TV/phone extension down inside too, as it means less stuff stapled to the outside of the house.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. It's definitely not summer yet...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top