Is HUB (Half Duplex) Okay?

[benfanti]

I am trying to extend the range of my (wired) home network to access the MVPs I recently picked up at Radio Shack.

Currently I have a cable modem feeding into a wireless router (Dlink DI-624) which has 4 wired LAN ports.

I wanted to run a cat5 cable from one of those lan ports upstairs to the uplink port on a network Hub (Netgear DS108) to expand the number of wired ports available.

My only problem is that I really have no idea about networks and was wondering if there was any problem using a hub to connect the MVPs because the hub only connects at half duplex. I did a forum search and think I read elsewhere in this forum that the MVP is a half duplex device so it appears that it shouldn't matter.

Is there a downside to the HUB connection for MVP? What problems would I notice with the half duplex connection on other devices (i.e. PC connecting to internet through HUB to router)?

Thanks for helping a noob.

[UncleJohnsBand]

I am trying to extend the range of my (wired) home network to access the MVPs I recently picked up at Radio Shack.

Currently I have a cable modem feeding into a wireless router (Dlink DI-624) which has 4 wired LAN ports.

I wanted to run a cat5 cable from one of those lan ports upstairs to the uplink port on a network Hub (Netgear DS108) to expand the number of wired ports available.

My only problem is that I really have no idea about networks and was wondering if there was any problem using a hub to connect the MVPs because the hub only connects at half duplex. I did a forum search and think I read elsewhere in this forum that the MVP is a half duplex device so it appears that it shouldn't matter.

Is there a downside to the HUB connection for MVP? What problems would I notice with the half duplex connection on other devices (i.e. PC connecting to internet through HUB to router)?

Thanks for helping a noob.

I would suspect that you may have difficulties with the hub rather than a switch....a hub shares all the bandwidth that is available with all the ports....wheras a switch has the full network speed available to every port on the unit.

So if you only are running the MVP on the hub and there is no other traffic then you may be ok....but if you hook up another unit to the hub you may experieince difficulties due to bandwidth issues.

Just my two cents.... :-)

[benfanti]

Thanks UncleJohnsBand for the advice.

I saw a switch on clearance at Office Max today; $15 for a Belkin 5 Port 10/100 Network Switch (F5D5131-5) which is described at http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPa..._Id=136528)

The box label mentions that the switch is good for "sharing a dial up connection," and that a DSL or cable modem should use the 4-Port Cable/DSL Gateway Router. But I already have a router and am just using this to extend the wired portion of the network, so I assume that this would work well.

Am I missing something?

[dinki]

I'm not sure about your issues with the mvps, but I do I have a network setup similar to what you a proposing to do. I've got a Dlink DI-524 wireless router that serves DHCP. I've got a cat5 cable running from one of the wired ports to a Dlink wired router in to one of the wired ports. I turned off DHCP on the wired router and changed the router IP address. All works fine for the two pcs (one of which is the gbpvr box) and the voip phone adaptor.

I realize that you are using a hub instead of a router, so that may change things. Just thought I'd share my experience.

[csy]

It heavily depends on how MVP works. There will always be multiple sources of traffic fighting for access onto the 10BaseT segment, even if the principle traffic is streaming content, and 10BaseT works on the principle of queuing (delaying the Ethernet frame) until the segment is idle and then transmits the frame (packet). So when the link is in the middle of transmitting an Ethernet frame, then the streaming packet has to wait, however the straming device usually allows for varying packet delays (jitter) by incorporating a dejitter buffer. The question is - does the MVP have a dejitter buffer and is the buffer large enough to compensate for the 10BaseT queuing delays.

For streaming content, it is best practice not to use devices that introduce packet jitter, therefore I recomend using an Ethernet switch instead.

The impact of adding a hub to one port on your wireless router depends if the router has hubbed ports or switched ports. If the router has hubbed ports then you are already operating in half-duplex mode, but if the router has switched ports, then only the port that the hub is plugged into will operate in half-duplex mode and the other router switch ports are independant and run at whatever speed/duplex they negotate with their link-partner.

Note however all broadcast traffic across the entire network will be transmitted across the hub half-duplex segment therefore adding to the packet jitter to the MVP.

[Lindsay]

Considering the low cost of switches, it is really a no-brainer. These systems are complicated enough without adding a contentious device to the mix. Good luck.