[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: First time fiber networking question

Hi there, I'm planning to pick up a MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN switch with FS SFP-10GSR-85 transceivers. This will be my first time delving into fiber and even though I read all the documentation and watched the videos I just want to confirm before pressing the button.

I'm stuck figuring out which fiber optic cable to use with this module, in the spec sheet it lists "LC" as supported connector. But when searching for these LC-LC fiber optic cables I'm seeing LC-APC, LC-UPC, LC-LC UPC and a whole lot of other connector type standards.

Could anyone confirm for me which fiber optic cable would be usable in this regard?

Also both ends will be using the SFP-10GSR-85 transceivers just fyi. My guess is that I'd need LC-LC but hopefully you guys can confirm.

FS.com SFP-10GSR-85

[Assistant]
Okay did some digging looks like I'll need duplex LC-UPC to LC-UPC connectors.

CntrlAltDel said:
Okay did some digging looks like I'll need duplex LC-UPC to LC-UPC connectors.

For standard ethernet at shorter distances, as long as it is LC you'll be fine. APC is superior as it has slightly less return loss, but only when you're up in the really high wavelengths or really long distances, etc. Obviously make sure whatever you need to plug into the other end is also LC but if it uses SFP it is, all common fiber SFPs use LC.

Just look for an LC to LC (or LC to whatever, but I'm assuming whatever you're plugging into is also LC) and you're fine. Most likely it will be UPC.

Far more important is to make sure you get a multimode fiber patch, since that SFP is Standard Reach (SR) which is Multimode Fiber with a reach of up to 300M on OM3 and 400M on OM4. Singlemode may get a link light but won't work correctly, if at all. Since I'm assuming you won't be going anywhere near those distances, either OM3 or OM4 patch will be fine, it just refers to the clarity of the glass. OM2 is pretty old but even that would work fine at shorter distances (not very common anymore).

The only other consideration is whether it is straight or cross. Most fiber patches are cross, however even if not, the vast majority of LC connectors now let you swap the TX and RX polarity (many of the old ones were molded into a single connector and you couldn't without breaking or cutting it). I haven't seen one of those old ones in a long time so I doubt you'd have to worry about it.

But if you connect two things together and get no link, swap the pairs on one end (either end).

drinkingbird said:
For standard ethernet at shorter distances, as long as it is LC you'll be fine. APC is superior as it has slightly less return loss, but only when you're up in the really high wavelengths or really long distances, etc. Obviously make sure whatever you need to plug into the other end is also LC but if it uses SFP it is, all common fiber SFPs use LC.

Just look for an LC to LC (or LC to whatever, but I'm assuming whatever you're plugging into is also LC) and you're fine. Most likely it will be UPC.

Far more important is to make sure you get a multimode fiber patch, since that SFP is Standard Reach (SR) which is Multimode Fiber with a reach of up to 300M on OM3 and 400M on OM4. Singlemode may get a link light but won't work correctly, if at all. Since I'm assuming you won't be going anywhere near those distances, either OM3 or OM4 patch will be fine, it just refers to the clarity of the glass. OM2 is pretty old but even that would probably work (not very common anymore).

The only other consideration is whether it is straight or cross. Most fiber patches are cross, however even if not, the vast majority of LC connectors now let you swap the TX and RX polarity (many of the old ones were molded into a single connector and you couldn't without breaking or cutting it). I haven't seen one of those old ones in a long time so I doubt you'd have to worry about it.

But if you connect two things together and get no link, swap the pairs on one end (either end).
Click to expand...

Thank you this is really useful information. Now I can make a decision instead of just looking for words that match in the spec vs the product page.

I found this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BZB6YX5/?tag=snbforums-20


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Where to get good Patch cables

So, I need some good patch cables to run POE+ over for wireless APs. I have not been happy with Amazon on longer cables. They are trying to sell cheap stuff. I looked at Walmart. Walmart's cables are not even branded CAT anything even though they sell them as CAT6a. Best buy I plan to look and maybe Altex. I would like real copper the correct diameter not smaller. Anybody know?

[Assistant]
coxhaus said:
So, I need some good patch cables to run POE+ over for wireless APs. I have not been happy with Amazon on longer cables. They are trying to sell cheap stuff. I looked at Walmart. Walmart's cables are not even branded CAT anything even though they sell them as CAT6a. Best buy I plan to look and maybe Altex. I would like real copper the correct diameter not smaller. Anybody know?

CCA isn't the end of the world (especially in ethernet), but pure copper is readily available too.

I'd look at the monoprice 23AWG cat6 (more power carrying ability but a bit less bandwidth/noise rejection) or the 26AWG CAT6A (should still be fine for POE+ and will handle 10G at full 328 feet). I believe they had a 24AWG cat6a but not seeing it on their site anymore, it is on amazon but pretty pricey. Most of them are pure copper.

I mean if you want really good stuff you're looking at Panduit but that is big $$

Personally I have a spool of CAT6A solid 23AWG and just do my runs and terminate them myself. But it requires special ends and crimper, unless you use punchdown/keystone jacks (still have to get 6A rated ones and terminate them properly, with little to no untwisting).

Edit - actually walmart has the monoprice 24AWG 6A for decent prices. Shipped by monoprice. Not sure why I'm not finding them on monoprice's site. Monoprice's site does have CAT8 24AWG and are running a 20% off coupon so the prices on those are decent too.

Oddly they rate their CAT6 at 550Mhz and Cat6A at 500. Cat6 is technically 250 "minimum" but if it tests higher they can advertise that. So the 24awg Cat 6 may give you exactly what you need. The only downside is CAT6 does not require the shielding between pairs to prevent crosstalk so likely can't do 10gig at full 328 feet.

Best Buy blue cat 6 cables are Monoprice. Also there Insignia cat 6 gray cables are shielded. Using both without issue here.

there have been a few threads on here before about monoprice versus name brand cabling from cable suppliers used in commercial applications. i don't have a handy link though, but i think either @Tech9 or @L&LD were involved in the discussion.
Bottom line was avoid monoprice if you want higher quality, reliable cabling in the walls. For patch and other easily replaced applications, may be good enough.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: What's wrong with my VDSL2?

I'm only getting 28MB down / 2.7MB up on my VDSL2.. So I queried my line.. and got a graph like this.. Does this look right, or should I tell someone to repair my line?
I really don't know how a "good" graph should look..
Thanks, -t

[Assistant]
Don't know about DSL but what speeds are you expecting?

The SNR is key and should usually be around 30db as hat seems to be the sweet spot for a strong signal.

DSL is a dying breed these days though for the most part but, 28/2 speeds might be all you can get out of it unless you're using a "home run" from the NID to the router. There might be splits / loads / coils / etc that are affecting the speed.

I would take the router to the NID where the line comes to the building and plug it in there and see what your results are from that point of entry. If there's a significant difference then there's something internal wiring is causing to slow things down. If the difference is negligible then it's beyond your house and on the provider side slowing things down.

At my location if I were to do DSL it would be 45/x @ $55/mo but, cable on the other hand for the same price would provide 400-600/15. So, obviously cable would make more sense. However FWA providers moved into the area in the last 2 years and offer $50/mo w/o any data caps or fees/taxes. With FWA I get ranging speeds vs more consistent speeds with cable but, I also pay 50% less and it's mobile as well. I can also power it off a power bank instead of spending money on a UPS. The PB can keep it powered or 16+ hours as it only draws about 5W of power. With the FWA box the highest speeds I've seen locally are 600/100 and that's taking it outside about 30-50ft from my building since I literally have a cell site above my unit. Closer isn't always better when it comes to RF.

Turgut Kalfaoglu said:
I'm only getting 28MB down / 2.7MB up on my VDSL2

And the ISP plan you are paying for is... what?

Did the ISP provide a modem with the service?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: News First picture of MaxLlinear's 8-port single-chip 2.5 Gbps switch

I attendend day 0 of Computex today and as I'm writing news for a different publication, I had a chat with the nice people over at MaxLinear and got an exclusive first look at their 8-port single-chip 2.5 switch development board. It should be quite affordable compared to current two chip solution from Broadcom, Realtek etc. and should end up landing somewhere between current Gigabit and 2.5 Gbps switch pricing, assuming the switch makers don't charge a premium for their products.

For more details, hit up the full article.
MaxLinear's 8-port 2.5 Gbps Switch is Tiny Single-chip Solution
TPU managed to get an early sneak peek of MaxLinear's recently announced 8-port 2.5 Gbps switch IC, ahead of Computex official start tomorrow. The MXL86280 is going to bring some serious competition to the 2.5 Gbps switch market, as thanks to it being a single chip solution that integrates the...
www.techpowerup.com

[Assistant]
TheLostSwede said:
I had a chat with the nice people over at MaxLinear and got an exclusive first look at their 8-port single-chip 2.5 switch development board.

I see a lot of room for a heat sink...

In any event, if this chipset brings down the price-per-port - that's a damn good thing.

sfx2000 said:
I see a lot of room for a heat sink...
Yeah, I noticed that too. It's not made on a cutting edge node, sub 20nm though. But it should be positively cooled, so no issue there.
sfx2000 said:
In any event, if this chipset brings down the price-per-port - that's a damn good thing.
It sounded like they expect around half compared to current 2.5 Gbps switches.

TheLostSwede said:
I attendend day 0 of Computex today and as I'm writing news for a different publication, I had a chat with the nice people over at MaxLinear and got an exclusive first look at their 8-port single-chip 2.5 switch development board. It should be quite affordable compared to current two chip solution from Broadcom, Realtek etc. and should end up landing somewhere between current Gigabit and 2.5 Gbps switch pricing, assuming the switch makers don't charge a premium for their products.

For more details, hit up the full article.
Click to expand...
So, how much is it? $37?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: New Firmware 2.5.9.16 for Cisco SF/SG 250/350/550 Small Business Switches

Nothing Earth Shattering but thought I would pass it along. Nice to see Cisco still supporting these switches.

April 2023 Release NotesforSF250,SG250,SF350,SG350/350X/ 350XG,SF550X,SG550X/550XG,SX350X,SX550X Series Switches Software Version 2.5.9.16.

What's New in this Release - This release contains bug fixes. There are no new features that have been added.

Resolved Issues 2_5_9_16 - Bug ID Description CSCwe89435 - Failure to reply to DHCP request when uplink is the CBW mesh network

[Assistant]
They had like 4-5 critical bugs in their firmware. Maybe yours are affected aswell.

https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/sec...Cisco&sort=-day_sir&limit=50#~Vulnerabilities

i uploaded it onto the switch but it is not active yet. Next time i reboot, which is rare, it will become the active firmware.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: D-Link DGS-1016C Switch

Greetings everyone! It's been a long while since I've been around. I guess that means all has been well in terms of my networking setup/needs.

I needed more ethernet connectivity in my media system stand so picked up a 16 port subject title gigabit switch, replacing a USB-powered D-Link 8 port. Of course everything was a breeze getting it all connected today. And of course, the included user guide/manual is lacking in terms of information.

Is anyone else using one of these switches? Or the DGS-1016D (or 1024 variant which is 24 port) which is same except for power connector?
My one question is the SWITCH GND screw on the rear middle of the unit. Is it intended to be connected to an actual ground or something? If so, what do I do? I've never seen this on switches I've used in the past, albeit this 16 port is the largest I've acquired so far.

Stock pic of rear w/ ground in middle:

I hunted for more info online to no avail. Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

TIA!

[Assistant]
According to Dlink that is for positive bonding the switch chassis to the rack for safety reasons. The rack would be bonded to electrical earth point of the supplied power to the rack. Depending on the ethernet cabling used, the a shield would be bonded to the earth, possibly at this switch and the bonding of the switch chassis to the rack bonding point would complete the connection to earth.
If you are using unshielded cable, that would be a moot point and the bonding would only be for electrical fault protection for humans.

This is in the user manual under "safety" section

What is your hardware revision letter ?

Is your switch using an AC 3 prong power cord or the image 12 V DC external power supply ?

Thanks for the reply!

Safety section? Who reads that? Haha! I guess I should have looked more closely.

The h/w version is “B2”

The image I posted is the model I bought which is the 1016C. 1016D has the 3 prong cord. I was going to go with the 1016D but came across some reviews where the internal power supply became faulty.

So I guess I should not have to worry about the ground? The switch is just sitting on shelf under tv, not rack-mounted or anything.

contact Dlink tech support. You may have to escalate.

without a correct earth bond and reference, two issues i can think of - floating ground level for internal circuit reference/operation and any electrical fault to the case will energize the metal case possibly creating a hazard to anyone touching the case while creating a path to earth inadvertently.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Can this coax cable be used for internet?

Can this coax cable be used for internet when connected to a cable modem?

https://a.co/d/fWzyGNR

[Assistant]
Thomas01 said:
Can this coax cable be used for internet when connected to a cable modem?

https://a.co/d/fWzyGNR

Any RG6 quad or even tri shield will work fine as long as it isn't a crazy long run or bundled with AC power cables. Most cable companies will give you whatever length you need. I have a drawer full of comcast tri and quad shield coax patches with nice PPC connectors on them that came free with various modems and self install kits, so $8 is pretty steep.

drinkingbird said:
comcast

I bought this thinking it might be better than the one from Xfinity/Comcast. Should I just return this and use the Xfinity one?

Thomas01 said:
Can this coax cable be used for internet when connected to a cable modem?

https://a.co/d/fWzyGNR

Any healthy RG-59 or better (RG-6, etc.) coax should work ok. (Coax has a minimum bend radius, so don't wrap it up in a knot.)

I would also confirm that the ISP cable shield is grounded to the building ground system at the demarc where it enters the building... look for a coax grounding block with the ground wire connected to it.

OE


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: DELL X540-T2 10 GbE NIC want allow M/B to boot

First let me congratulate Dennis Wood on a fine series.

He inspired me to do some testing of my own, now I'm a newbie to both Networking and 10GbE Nics. My problem is I cant even get my hardware to talk to each other.

Motherboards ............1150 Asus Z97-A...................1155 Gigagyte Z77X-D3H
CPU.............................I7-4790K..................................I7-3770K
Memory.......................GSkill 32Gb.............................G Skill 32Gb
SSD.............................128 Gb Samy Pro...................2x256 Samy Pro Raid 0
Video cards removed to give full access to the PCIe slots, running on Intel HD
Both running Windows 8.1 Pro

All was working fine over a 1 GbE Network until I installed a Dell X540-T2 10 GbE Nic into both computers and neither will boot, not even post!

Now I have tested 1 of the cards in my work station (2011 M/B, I7-3930K) and all worked well, set it up to replace a 1GbE Nic.

Has Dell limited the cards compatibility?
Can I rescue them for my test bed,
or do I hand them over to my Grinning Boss for his server?

Stay tuned, the aim is a High Speed Network for Solidworks modelling – 3 stations
Regards to all

[Assistant]
TonyH
I checked the BIOS on each machine,
the Z77 was up to date
the Z97 was not - updated it, still will not post

Can you get the boot error codes? That would be the first place to start.

Next would probably be contacting the board manufacturers depending on what the boot codes are.

Thanks azazel1024, I'm away from the office/home for another week.
When I return I'll see what codes I can acquire.

Would be nice if it at least worked with the Asus Z97-A as this config is proving to be a nice Solidworks station


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Cat 6A or better capable?

So, with Fiber on the rise (And my entire area slated for a fiber switch according to an AT&T install tech from a friend), can Cat 6A.7/8 do 10G+ (25 ,40, 100 Gig?) Or is getting things like SFP+ or other switches, cards and Fiber cables inevitable? If it is possible, when do you think we'd see an ethernet card that would support that?

[Assistant]
Cards already exist. QSFP hits 40gbps not sure on the 100gbps but if you're willing to pay anything's possible since DCs have parts to hit much higher.

Copper isn't the best choice though for much higher speeds at a distance. You can get QSFP cables with the modules attached though and just slide them into the card or appliance.

Chris313AllNight said:
So, with Fiber on the rise (And my entire area slated for a fiber switch according to an AT&T install tech from a friend), can Cat 6A.7/8 do 10G+ (25 ,40, 100 Gig?) Or is getting things like SFP+ or other switches, cards and Fiber cables inevitable? If it is possible, when do you think we'd see an ethernet card that would support that?

Up to 40G is possible over Cat 8 but only at short distances and there is very little out there to support it. For the most part, above 10G you're looking at fiber.

There are already 25, 40, and 100G fiber devices. 40 and 100G are the most common. It will cost a small fortune to buy anything that supports it. For home use, 2.5, 5, and 10G will be what you see for many many years to come. If you're looking to be future proof when wiring a home just use duct or conduit so you can pull fiber later if/when needed.

Thank you. This was just a question. My area is being wired for Fiber now and I'm looking to get myself situated and once I'm all set, get me to a solid 10/10G and then I'll worry the rest later. Especially since things like 10 or faster will be expensive and I've only got so much budget per month. Not to mention equipment and wiring.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: CAT.6A 28awg patch cable.

I've bought 10ft CAT.6A 28awg Data Center patch cables. I didn't know it's very thin. It's almost 50% thinner than a normal cable. A normal CAT.6a cable's diameter is about 7.5mm. This CAT.6A 28awg patch cable has 3.7mm diameter. It works good for now. But it's too thin. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[Assistant]
follower said:
I've bought 10ft CAT.6A 28awg Data Center patch cables. I didn't know it's very thin. It's almost 50% thinner than a normal cable. A normal CAT.6a cable's diameter is about 7.5mm. This CAT.6A 28awg patch cable has 3.7mm diameter. It works good for now. But it's too thin. Does anyone have any experience with it?
I don’t, but, I found this write up…….

AWG of Ethernet Cables You should know - NewLinko
You might see an AWG specification printed on the cable jacket when purchasing Cat5e, Cat6, or Cat6a network cables. It stands for American Wire Gauge which determines the diameter of the individual conductors (wires). It's helpful to know what wire gauge implies to grasp the variations between...
www.newlinko.com

The description is clear enough - patch cable. Short and data only. Not good for long runs and PoE.

Treadler said:
I don’t, but, I found this write up…….

AWG of Ethernet Cables You should know - NewLinko
You might see an AWG specification printed on the cable jacket when purchasing Cat5e, Cat6, or Cat6a network cables. It stands for American Wire Gauge which determines the diameter of the individual conductors (wires). It's helpful to know what wire gauge implies to grasp the variations between...
Click to expand...
Tech9 said:
The description is clear enough - patch cable. Short and data only. Not good for long runs and PoE.

I thought it's a shielded cable. Most of CAT.6a is shielded with Aluminium Foil as you know. But this one is not.
Pros: ANSI/TIA-568-C.2 Category 6 or 6A. Flexible like a fiber cable. Very thin. It can be used for high density and narrow area. Great for air flow. Looking good. Well made.
Cons: Unshielded (3.7mm 28awg is unshielded, 4.7mm 28awg is unshielded or shielded). More expensive than a normal CAT.6a cable. 3m is over $20 each.
I'm happy that I didn't buy 32awg 2.8mm.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: New motherboard with 10Gbe and only getting max 5Gb/s

Hi all

So recently purchased a new Asus motherboard x670e , it has a 10Gbe port on it, as did my previous Asrock motherboard x570. I`ve got it connected directly to another PC with a Asus 10Gbe PCI card , and you can see the iperf results below.
Main use is to connect to my Qnap NAS 10Gbe port via a 10gbe switch, which when running tests previously on my old motherboard i`d get around 10Gb/s. But on this setup i`m struggling to get 3Gb/s to my NAS via the switch.
I`ve tried uninstalling/reinstalling drivers and pretty much disabling and enabling everything in the adapters (Marvell) advanced settings. But nothing improves the speed. I have forced it to connect at 10Gb in there aswell.
Tried disabling Rec Segment Coalescing and Energy efficient Ethernet but no difference. I`ve actually gone down the whole list disabling things.

The only slightly better result i can get is i setup a dual boot to windows 10 (i`m using windows 11) , and I would get around 5Gb/s (instead of 3Gb/s to the NAS) But still no where near the 10Gb/s i`d expect.

Any ideas? Thanks

[Assistant]
Start at layer 1 which is the cable. Once you rule that out move up the OSI stack.

Tech Junky said:
Start at layer 1 which is the cable. Once you rule that out move up the OSI stack.
Yes tried two cables cat 6e and 7.

L&LD said:
Did you try new cables?
Yes as mentioned above. Also I did work fine before with the same cables and setup just new motherboard has changed.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Download speed is consistently lower than upload speed on one PC (Lumos Networks fiber Internet)

I have had great luck with the smart people on this forum before, and maybe you can help me figure this out. We just had a Lumos Networks 2 Gbps fiber Internet service installed, and the speeds are incredible - on one computer:

This desktop system is connected via Ethernet to a Zyxel 2 Gbps unmanaged switch, which is, in turn, connected to the 2 Gbps LAN port on a Netgear Orbi RBRE960 router. So far, so good.

However, the speeds on the other computer, which is also hardwired, are pretty different. While the upload speeds are impressive, the download speeds are considerably lower:

This computer is linked to another Zyxel 2 Gbps unmanaged switch connected to the same switch as the computer above. The cable that links the two switches has a coupler linking two Ethernet cables. What do you make of this? If the upload speeds are the same or better, shouldn't the download speeds also be?

[Assistant]
rmiller1959 said:
I have had great luck with the smart people on this forum before, and maybe you can help me figure this out. We just had a Lumos Networks 2 Gbps fiber Internet service installed, and the speeds are incredible - on one computer:

This desktop system is connected via Ethernet to a Zyxel 2 Gbps unmanaged switch, which is, in turn, connected to the 2 Gbps LAN port on a Netgear Orbi RBRE960 router. So far, so good.

However, the speeds on the other computer, which is also hardwired, are pretty different. While the upload speeds are impressive, the download speeds are considerably lower:

This computer is linked to another Zyxel 2 Gbps unmanaged switch connected to the same switch as the computer above. The cable that links the two switches has a coupler linking two Ethernet cables. What do you make of this? If the upload speeds are the same or better, shouldn't the download speeds also be?
Click to expand...

Edited for clarity.
First, I'm assuming you're using all 2.5G connections (not 2G which would be bonded 1G in LAG which works differently)?

Try disabling firewall/antivirus on the PC while doing the speed test. If your results are significantly better, your PC just isn't up to the task of 2G throughput. I suspect that is the issue since the download is suffering more than upload (it scans the download much more thoroughly than upload). If that is the issue, you can either buy a new powerful PC, or just print out the speed test result, frame it, and be happy, since you likely do not need anywhere near 2G to a single PC.

If that doesn't help, watch the CPU in the PC during the speedtest, is it hitting 100% even with firewall disabled? If so, again, new PC or just be happy that you have more than enough speed, and your connection can support multiple computers all with a ton of speed at the same time.

You could try a better NIC in the PC, something from Intel (preferably server class) with its own dedicated processor on it. That may alleviate some of the CPU usage for the actual network traffic, but won't help with CPU usage caused by firewall/antivirus. You can see if there is a different firewall program that is more efficient but I doubt you'll find one that is twice as efficient.

If neither of the above, start checking wiring. Especially that RJ45 coupler, if it is some generic one, those are notoriously crappy. You can pick up good true Cat5e or better ones at home depot or from a good brand name off amazon. But also check your other wiring. If you have a laptop, test it at each point, before the coupler, after the coupler, at the final end near the PC, etc. Make sure the cable is not running along side power wires, or get a shielded cable if you have no choice. Distance needs to be about 330 feet or less. Or if no laptop available and you don't feel like moving the desktop around, pick up a long ethernet (CAT5e or better, probably better to go with a good quality 6 or 6E one) and temporarily run it down the hall directly to the main router, then to the main switch, then to where the coupler is, etc.

Daisy chaining switches should have very little impact so that shouldn't be the problem, unless that second switch has an issue or the cable between it and the first switch is no good.

But at these speeds, it is likely you are hitting hardware limitations. They sold you a 300MPH car but in reality there is nowhere you can drive that fast. 2G internet could support a business of 1000 people. So unless you're running a major hosting operation or porn site out of your house, kinda not needed, especially when most of the sites/servers you connect to will throttle you to much lower speeds anyway (except speed test sites).

I'd start with disabling firewall and antivirus for the test, I suspect you'll see significant increase in speed. Then you need to decide if it is worth the cost of a new computer just to see higher numbers.

Of course their speed test server may just be overloaded if there are lots of new customers coming on and testing. I see your first test has a slower upload than your second so it seems somewhat inconsistent. But if both PCs get the same result repeatedly over time then that probably isn't the problem.

If your router supports any sort of port counters to show errors that could help, but I suspect it doesn't. And the unmanaged switches won't either. That could help narrow it down if it is a wiring issue but the steps above will too.

move the second, slower result PC to the location of the first PC and use the same cable as the first. That will indicate if it is a cable, coupler, 2nd switch issue or the capabilities of the second PC.

drinkingbird said:
Edited for clarity.
First, I'm assuming you're using all 2.5G connections (not 2G which would be bonded 1G in LAG which works differently)?

Try disabling firewall/antivirus on the PC while doing the speed test. If your results are significantly better, your PC just isn't up to the task of 2G throughput. I suspect that is the issue since the download is suffering more than upload (it scans the download much more thoroughly than upload). If that is the issue, you can either buy a new powerful PC, or just print out the speed test result, frame it, and be happy, since you likely do not need anywhere near 2G to a single PC.

If that doesn't help, watch the CPU in the PC during the speedtest, is it hitting 100% even with firewall disabled? If so, again, new PC or just be happy that you have more than enough speed, and your connection can support multiple computers all with a ton of speed at the same time.

You could try a better NIC in the PC, something from Intel (preferably server class) with its own dedicated processor on it. That may alleviate some of the CPU usage for the actual network traffic, but won't help with CPU usage caused by firewall/antivirus. You can see if there is a different firewall program that is more efficient but I doubt you'll find one that is twice as efficient.

If neither of the above, start checking wiring. Especially that RJ45 coupler, if it is some generic one, those are notoriously crappy. You can pick up good true Cat5e or better ones at home depot or from a good brand name off amazon. But also check your other wiring. If you have a laptop, test it at each point, before the coupler, after the coupler, at the final end near the PC, etc. Make sure the cable is not running along side power wires, or get a shielded cable if you have no choice. Distance needs to be about 330 feet or less. Or if no laptop available and you don't feel like moving the desktop around, pick up a long ethernet (CAT5e or better, probably better to go with a good quality 6 or 6E one) and temporarily run it down the hall directly to the main router, then to the main switch, then to where the coupler is, etc.

Daisy chaining switches should have very little impact so that shouldn't be the problem, unless that second switch has an issue or the cable between it and the first switch is no good.

But at these speeds, it is likely you are hitting hardware limitations. They sold you a 300MPH car but in reality there is nowhere you can drive that fast. 2G internet could support a business of 1000 people. So unless you're running a major hosting operation or porn site out of your house, kinda not needed, especially when most of the sites/servers you connect to will throttle you to much lower speeds anyway (except speed test sites).

I'd start with disabling firewall and antivirus for the test, I suspect you'll see significant increase in speed. Then you need to decide if it is worth the cost of a new computer just to see higher numbers.

Of course their speed test server may just be overloaded if there are lots of new customers coming on and testing. I see your first test has a slower upload than your second so it seems somewhat inconsistent. But if both PCs get the same result repeatedly over time then that probably isn't the problem.

If your router supports any sort of port counters to show errors that could help, but I suspect it doesn't. And the unmanaged switches won't either. That could help narrow it down if it is a wiring issue but the steps above will too.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the comprehensive response! I will take the time to review it and determine how to attack the problem. However, since my initial post, I have done additional troubleshooting that may narrow down the problem. Note that the speed readings are from two components limited to 1 Gbps by the Ethernet ports (the PC with the upload/download speed conundrum has a 2.5 Gbps Internet port).

First, I use a mini-PC as a media PC connected to the same switch as the 2.5 Gbps PC. As you can see, the speed readings are roughly symmetrical and appropriate for the connection:

I then connected a laptop with a 1 Gbps Ethernet port to the cable leading to the 2.5 Gbps PC. Again, the readings are symmetrical and appropriate for the port speed:

These results suggest that the problem is with the 2.5 Gbps PC. It is also a mini-PC (ASUS PN63-S1) but significantly upgraded:

Intel Core i7-11370H Mobile Processor
Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics
G.Skill RipJaws Series 64GB (2 x 32GB) 260-Pin SO-DIMM PC4-25600 DDR4 3200 Dual Channel Memory
WD SN850x M.2 NVMe 1 TB Solid State Drive
WD SN770 NVMe 1 TB Solid State Drive
WD SA510 SATA 2.5-inch 1 TB Solid State Drive
Intel I225V 2.5G LAN Port


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Trooli FTTP - replace Technicolor DGA4134 with modem/bridge/micro switch

Not sure if anyone can help, but I'm looking for recommendations for a device to pass PPPOE details without acting as a router or firewall on our new FTTP Trooli connection.

I have obtained all PPPOE details (directly from Trooli) and have permission to run own equipment - but I'm unsure what device exactly I should be purchasing.

Is there a simple bridge device / micro switch recommended that can pass PPPOE details over FTTP much like a simple DSL modem? I don't want it to do anything other than pass data straight to our Smoothwall device.

Our current network looks like this:

Trooli FTTP
Adrant 621 ONT
Trooli Router - replace this with bridge device
Smoothwall
LAN

[Assistant]
Any device can "pass" PPPoE information from a client, or do you mean you want a device that is a PPPoE client? In which case why not use the PPPoE client on your Smoothwall device?

https://kb.smoothwall.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015816339

ColinTaylor said:
Any device can "pass" PPPoE information from a client, or do you mean you want a device that is a PPPoE client? In which case why not use the PPPoE client on your Smoothwall device?

https://kb.smoothwall.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015816339
We have an S5 device and understood (maybe wrongly) that it wasn't supported for acting as PPPOE client.

I will double check.

Smoothwall Help Centre

I was thinking of one of these devices... but seems like overkill to just pass PPPOE client details.

Connect a DrayTek Vigor router to Ultrafast Full-Fibre FTTP Broadband
Fibre, Ethernet, Broadband, PPPoE, Ultrafast, ONT, Optical, Network, Terminal, Gigabit, FTTP, FTTP, Fiber, Broadband, CityFibre
www.draytek.co.uk


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Does PoE power budget matter?

hey guys,
would you think that the power budget of the PoE switches matters a lot?
I mean, for example, between 60w and 63w
I know of course that it's bigger and better, but just different a little bit, do you think it matters?

[Assistant]
Try Google search.

DITEK Blog - Surge Protection Topics
The DITEK Blog includes current information, opinions and suggestions for a wide variety of surge protection topics.
www.diteksurgeprotection.com

you can always use injectors if you need more POE ports. What you have may be good for 1-4 devices depending on the ethernet cable losses and the device demand current. Look at the max demand spec for the device.

Future-wise, POE budget will matter more and more, methinks. I power 4 AP's and two 5-port switches directly off the main Cisco switch. 2 big advantages: 1. no sockets needed, 2. all devices are on the UPS through the switch. That is a bunch of less cabling and more protection from power outages, notches or power surges. I want to add a couple of camera's, no sweat...

I can envision that also other devices such as STB's or even some small low-power servers with NVme or SSD's could be powered by POE++ in the future. There are already some routers (The ER-X had it) that can be powered by POE+.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Mac Address Table、Packet Buffer

hi, does anyone know what are the benefits of Mac Address Table、Packet Buffer?
I just know that it's better that the number of Mac Address Table and Packet Buffer is bigger and bigger
but what would these 2 items actually affect?

[Assistant]
I suggest you use Google or another search engine for an explanation of these. They are not something that you would normally pay any attention to in a home network.

ColinTaylor said:
I suggest you use Google or another search engine for an explanation of these. They are not something that you would normally pay any attention to in a home network.

I agree...

Going back to OP's question - the MAC address table tracks the MAC addresses of the devices attached to the switch.

Packet Buffers, by default, are sufficient to handle traffic across the switch, and if too small, the switch will start blocking traffic under load.

For home networks - the switch inside the router/AP is sized appropriately, and same goes with unmanaged desktop switches.

It's pretty much transparent, and no need to make any changes, even if it were possible.

hth..

thx for @ColinTaylor and @sfx2000
I've noticed that you both mention that they're not something important to home network
So on the other side, it's quite important to business network, right?

since if the Packet Buffer is too small, the switch will start blocking traffic under load, which means network speed will slow down.
and if the MAC address table is too small, which means that the fewer MAC addresses of the devices attached to the switch could track.

I think these 2 items are important to a managed switch?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Common and inexpensive switch and networking brands in Germany

I want to plan a network upgrade for my dad in Germany. Unfortunately, I live in the U.S. and have been using mainly Netgear and EnGenius equipment here. I have fared well with those choices. Looking at what’s available in Germany on Amazon.de, those brands are not as available. I am wondering, whether there are other brands that in that market are more common and less expensive.

Any suggestions!

[Assistant]
DominikHoffmann said:
I want to plan a network upgrade for my dad in Germany. Unfortunately, I live in the U.S. and have been using mainly Netgear and EnGenius equipment here. I have fared well with those choices. Looking at what’s available in Germany on Amazon.de, those brands are not as available. I am wondering, whether there are other brands that in that market are more common and less expensive.

Any suggestions!
Click to expand...
TP-LINK.

follower said:
TP-LINK.
I was hoping for brands that were not from Communist China.

you might want to investigate the ISO certificates for their supply chains then. Netgear for sure manufactures in PRC and Vietnam for their networking gear.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Planning wired home network

Hi - I'm looking to begin creating a wired network in my house in the UK
- Wireless and boosters and powerline adaptors are current setup but irritating drop-outs and now need to have internet connection in an external garage

Our router is in a downstairs family area in the centre of a 2 storey house
I dont have a room where I am keen to have the equipment accessible
- Planning on sending a cable form the router out through the wall, up the side of the house and into the eaves of the roof to the loft
- Then using a switch there and distributing wired connections to various areas of the house

Eventually will add in Wireless AP's via this network - but that is for the future - will run those cables inside the walls when we redecorate and I am allowed to make holes in the walls!
The connection is 1GB so planning Cat6, the lengths of cable are fairly short so didn't see the point of Cat6a
Several cables will run alongside or in close proximity to DC and/or AC cables therefore planning FTP cables
So my plan was to have a switch with around 8 ports in the loft - nothing too fancy

Q's:
Is there an issue with putting this equipment in an uninsulated loft? Climate range is -5 to +30 degC
What connection type should I use at each end? At wall connections in rooms, I had planned to use an RJ45 wall module like this but then saw that a keystone jack such as this could be fitted into a wall module adaptor
My gut feeling is the first one would be just fine - is there an advantage of the keystone in the rooms?
In the loft, I had planned to just terminate the Cat6 cable into the switch via an RJ45 - I have bought a Netgear GS308E
Then I realised that with the FTP cable, the shielding will need to be grounded - I believe this needs to occur at the switch end of the cable in the loft
However with the switch being supplied by a DC adaptor, it is not earthed itself
So I need a patch panel which I can attach the Cat6 FTP cable to via a key-stone - with the shielding grounded via this
But then I need to ground the patch panel
This patch panelhas sufficient space, it states it accepts FTP keystone modules
But how would I go about grounding this patch panel? It isn't going into a rack and it doesnt seem to have an earthing tail
Is it sufficient to take an earth cable (e.g. 4mm^2/12AWG), wrap this round the eye on the patch panel and bolt it in plate when I fix the panel to the wall?
the other end I would then terminate inside an existing electical socket's earth connection
I would me most grateful for any advice - especially if any of my assumptions are incorrect
Many thanks

[Assistant]
I'll leave the questions around grounding and power interference to others but are you sure on that temperature range for the loft?

The lofts have a nasty habit of concentrating heat at times and getting quite a bit hotter in the summer.

What sort of operating temperature range does the kit you're looking at have?

eightiescalling said:
I'll leave the questions around grounding and power interference to others but are you sure on that temperature range for the loft?

The lofts have a nasty habit of concentrating heat at times and getting quite a bit hotter in the summer.

What sort of operating temperature range does the kit you're looking at have?
Click to expand...
Thanks - it’ll only be the switch up there at the moment I think - the switch operating temp is 0-40 degC. That temp range is typical of our climate. If I find it stops working during a heatwave that’ll be my answer and I guess I’ll have to relocate things to a room in the house - maybe just leaving a patch panel up there which shouldn’t generate heat (?)
I have had a PoE NVR system up there over the last 7 years which does kick out a fair bit of heat - and this has coped so far so I am optimistic.
Are there any logistical issues with putting it in the roof? I’m hoping to set it and forget it

Like @eightiescalling, I will pass on the grounding question. (You would do well to consult a locally-licensed electrician, because building codes vary from place to place.) As for the temperature question, 10 degrees C is not the kind of margin you want, because attics get hot when it's warm outside and the sun is beating down. I will tell a somewhat-related story on myself: a couple decades back, I had whole-house A/C installed, with an air handler up in the attic. It worked great, except that the drain pump kept failing and needing to be replaced every year or two, always in the summer when it was really unpleasant for the A/C to stop working. Eventually some bright repairman said "the pump is getting fried because it's too darn warm up there in the summer". We put in an inexpensive temperature-activated exhaust fan, and have not seen such a failure since. You might want to consider putting a similar fan up there, because aside from not frying your electronics it will probably make things a tad more comfortable downstairs too.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Testing an inherited wired home network

Hi all,

(My first post on here so please be gentle )

I've recently-ish moved into a house, which the previous owner had already wired up with network cabling. In a helpful "welcome to the house, here's the quirks" letter, he'd mentioned that all the cabling is Cat6, but that over time hadn't really bothered to test or fix anything as they just used wifi all the time.

Due to the nature of my work I'm going to need a better home network than this, but realised that most of the network ports in the wall either don't work, or only deliver 10/100 Mbps.

So I had a couple of questions for yous experts on here before I go off investing in various bits of kit to get this sorted out:

1. What's a sensible way to test the ports, other than simply plugging in a laptop + network cable into it..? Is there some equipment I can use to test the port itself, or is my only option to open it up and test the cable in the wall?

2. I noticed that every network port in the wall also has a coax cable outlet next to it -- would it make sense to simply just use a MoCA setup instead, or will the effort in sorting out the network cabling be worth it?

3. I'm not averse to simply hiring someone better equipped (knowledge, skill and kit wise), so any recommendations for an organisation or tradies that do this in the West London area will be gratefully received -- although tbh, I'd rather do it myself so that I'm better in tune with the house...

Any advice/critique of my thinking and approach would be welcome -- thanks in advance!!

[Assistant]
Congrats on the house. I too bought a house a few years ago fully wired with "structured wiring" (multiple network/phone and coax connections), which was a gift as I prefer wired connectivity.

To answer your questions:

1) Sure, there are tools to test, and will tell you if the ports are wired correctly, but since you're trying to "sound" out the active ones, a laptop with "network connections" app opened will tell you what you need to know.

2) MoCA will never be as fast as a properly wired port using CAT5 or better, and you would need to buy new equipment for each connection.

3) Sure you could do this too, but before you do consider this:

- If this is really structured wiring, you should have a network panel in the basement or in a closet (each connection should "home run" to that panel). In one of my houses, this "panel" was in fact just all the wires stapled to a plywood panel in the basement, in another it was a proper AV panel, labeled with each room and had the network/phone and coax cables neatly arranged. FIND THAT PANEL.

- Hopefully it's near your modem/ONT, so you can plug your modem/ONT into that distribution panel (otherwise you'll need to use a port to get the internet connection to that panel).

- Once you find the panel or the home run location, check to see if there is a network switch. At both of the aforementioned homes, when I sold the property, I left behind an ancient 10/100 10-port switch, so the new owner would have connectivity from day 1. I took my nice 1G 24-port switch to use in my next place. CHECK TO SEE IF THERE IS A NETWORK SWITCH, AND WHAT SPEED ITS PORTS ARE OPERATING AT.

- Some panels have built-in switches. You may need to bypass this built-in switch.

- Once you find the switch, REPLACE IT WITH SOMETHING THAT IS FASTER (1G or 2.5G) and WITH AS MANY PORTS AS YOU WILL NEED HIGH-SPEED CONNECTIONS. I used two switches on my most recent network, because it was a large house and I wanted every port active: I used the 1G switch for all my "daily high speed" connections and the 10/100mb switch for everything else (e.g., printers). I wired a total of ~30 ports in that house (but when I left, only 10 were wired with that old 10/100 switch... did you buy my house?).

This isn't complicated, just a bit of detective work and then a purchase or two (network switch, some patch cables). Good luck!

Thank you for the detailed response!

"Structured wiring" is a bit of oversell, unfortunately. What the previous owner (hereafter referred to as PO) appears to have done is not very structured.

There's no panel -- just a couple of cables that stick out from the wall near where the modem can be installed, which then sort of wrap around the outside of the house, and go stick out from another point in the wall (in the same living room as the modem). The PO had left an old unmanaged Netgear switch here (8-port, 10/100 -- FS108), which had the distribution cables plugged into this; no sign of a panel in place btw, it's all just a huge big mess of cables hogtied with tape and zipties.

I had the Gigabit version of the same switch handy (GS308), so popped that in to test the various network ports around the house. Now, every room in the house has one network port, and matches up to the number of wires going "out" from the switch so my starting assumption was that every room should be wired up as well. But, of the additional 4 rooms, only 2 had working ports, and only one of them got gigabit speeds

I guess I'd like to know if my best way forward is to open up all the non-functioning wall network ports, and test them individually..?

Edit: adding an image of the cabling points. Green star is modem, from where a couple of cables go out around the front of the house (red line), and come back in through the wall into a network switch indicated by the blue star, which is where the big mess of distribution cables is also located.

you will want an ethernet cable tester to verify that each run is terminated correctly ( A or B pattern) and has continuity on the individual wires. You may have to reterminate some/all of the wires at the wall plate and the central point where the switch is located.
Have you identified if the wire is CAT 5 or 5E or 6 ?

The outside run may be suspect as well if it was not exterior, direct burial, CAT 5E or 6 ethernet cable. Since that is expensive, i would doubt it is unless run by an installer or the ISP. A regular ethernet cable will survive a few years or until water gets into the wiring jacket and the wire insulation fails from water saturation. Ice in the wire will accelerate that. You might want to get the ISP to move their demarcation point from the green star to the blue star location outside the house.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Help with structured media panel

I just bought a preowned house that has a structured media panel, which I've never had, and am trying to figure out what all the previous owners have going on with it and what I need to do to get it right. Seems the previous owner had AT&T fiber, and I plan to carry over my Xfinity cable instead, so I want to remove anything to do with the fiber setup.

As shown in the photos, there are three yellow ethernet cables, one coming from the top left hole in the panel, one coming from the AT&T box, and the other coming from the hole in the wall (where does it go?). None of these are connected to anything on this end, as all three shown lying on the wire shelf.

There's a blue wire and a white wire coming in from the orange tube. Both are just "cut" on this end, and lying on the wire shelf. When looking at new homes, I noticed this orange tube sticking out of the house to the outside. What is this supposed to be used for?

There's a black wire and a blue wire, both coming from the top left hole in the panel, going to a small box (and as shown in the blurry photo, the blue wire is half cut).

As for the coax cable, oddly only one is attached to the splitter. As shown, most of the coax cables aren't connected on this end and I assume those all go to each room, but I assume they had Direct TV (there's a dish on our roof), although one cable is connected for some reason. Also, as shown, why are two of them connected to each other here?

Do people usually put their cable modems inside these panels? And maybe use that one ethernet cable that runs to the hole in the wall to connect the modem to a router in one of the rooms?
Should I buy a better? I see some are much nicer, which a shelf to hold a modem.

[Assistant]
Forum would only let me attach 5 photos. Here are the rest.

Slickone said:
Forum would only let me attach 5 photos. Here are the rest.

No way to give definitive answers, you will probably need to invest in a cable tracing tool (tone and probe), or something like the Klein VDV Scout which can trace lots of things at once.

The orange duct is your main feed from outside.
Within the orange duct:
Likely that cut white coax is the cable company's main incoming feed, they will need to put an end on it and connect it to the "in" of the coax splitter.
Blue is probably for incoming phone I would guess (maybe an old POTS line or it is fed from a VOIP box somewhere, not sure if cable, AT&T, etc). You'd need to look at the other end of the orange tube and see where that blue ethernet goes (ethernet is often used to deliver phone now). I can't see why they'd have an ethernet incoming, unless there is a second fiber provider and their ONT box is in a shared space, in which case that ethernet would be for their data, and the coax may also go to that ONT for TV.
The white with green end is AT&T's fiber incoming.

The splitter was probably installed by the cable company at some point, then when the previous homeowner put in satellite and only needed one TV, they connected just that one. You can connect whichever rooms you want back to the "out" ports of the splitter, and cable company will be on the "in". I also see two coaxes coupled together, maybe that is his directTV and whatever is connected to the splitter is just old from previous cable. Again you probably need to disconnect all of them and trace and label the wires to have it make sense. Probably most of those feed rooms and one comes from attic or wherever the satellite is. He either just directly coupled the satellite feed to the room where he needed it, or it is running via the splitter. Your only option to figure that out is just disconnect them all and trace them out. If you don't want to invest in a tracing tool, once you have a TV signal, you just go room to room with a box, and connect one cable at a time to the splitter, when you find one that connects, label that wire, rinse, repeat. Kind of a pain but works. A tone and probe set can be gotten cheap and will be faster.

The rest is just guess work, you need to trace it out, but:
Yellow from top left is probably to a room in the house somewhere that the builder figured is where a router would go. Likely has an RJ45 wall jack on it. Or maybe it goes to another box somewhere else that has lots of ethernets feeding the rest of the house.
That yellow is connected via blue coupler to the yellow on the bottom right which I'm assuming is one of the yellows coming out of the wall box below it. That would have probably been the LAN off his router running to an access point or wired PC, switch, etc. He just had to extend it a bit as it wasn't long enough to get to the wire shelf.
Yellow from AT&T box also appears to come out of that wall box, which would have been the WAN on his router.
Top right Black is probably a phone jack somewhere in the house or feeds to a breakout box with lots of phone lines.
The blue coming out of the wall box below is probably the blue connected to the black phone line going to the rest of the house via that RJ11 box. His AT&T router that was sitting on the wire shelf probably had a phone output on it

Slickone said:
I just bought a preowned house that has a structured media panel, which I've never had, and am trying to figure out what all the previous owners have going on with it and what I need to do to get it right. Seems the previous owner had AT&T fiber, and I plan to carry over my Xfinity cable instead, so I want to remove anything to do with the fiber setup.

As shown in the photos, there are three yellow ethernet cables, one coming from the top left hole in the panel, one coming from the AT&T box, and the other coming from the hole in the wall (where does it go?). None of these are connected to anything on this end, as all three shown lying on the wire shelf.

There's a blue wire and a white wire coming in from the orange tube. Both are just "cut" on this end, and lying on the wire shelf. When looking at new homes, I noticed this orange tube sticking out of the house to the outside. What is this supposed to be used for?

There's a black wire and a blue wire, both coming from the top left hole in the panel, going to a small box (and as shown in the blurry photo, the blue wire is half cut).

As for the coax cable, oddly only one is attached to the splitter. As shown, most of the coax cables aren't connected on this end and I assume those all go to each room, but I assume they had Direct TV (there's a dish on our roof), although one cable is connected for some reason. Also, as shown, why are two of them connected to each other here?

Do people usually put their cable modems inside these panels? And maybe use that one ethernet cable that runs to the hole in the wall to connect the modem to a router in one of the rooms?
Should I buy a better? I see some are much nicer, which a shelf to hold a modem.
Click to expand...
Call a technician.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Newbie confusion between unmanaged and managed switch speeds

Hi all,

I'm a complete novice when it comes to networking in general and would like some assistance if possible....

As a small business owner, I thought it best to invest in a NAS to store my business critical data along with my personal files etc etc so I went out and bought a QNAP464TS and filled it with N300 HDD's.
I'm learning more and more each day and have managed to configure it as best I can but there's room for improvement as always.
Anyway, doing this has led me down a rabbit hole of upgrades and I've ultimately hit a bit of a weird snag with my latest ridiculous investment....a managed switch.

So originally, I bought a TP-Link 8 Port unmanaged switch - TL-SG108-M2 and all was going well then I had an idea, surely a managed switch would boost my speeds even more!! How wrong I was!!
I went out and bought a QNAP QSW-M2108r-2C thinking that this device would somehow magically do some trickery and increase my network speeds, it did nothing of the sort and has actually REDUCED my speeds!!
How is this possible? Now there are multitude of settings built into it which are beyond my comprehension but I was under the assumption that leaving it to factory default would be ok.

I am on a BT 500 FTTP service with ONT at the living room wall.
My router is an ASUS AX GT6000 running Merlin and SKYNET with advanced configurations set from following a well known youtuber so I'm quite certain that the set up is correct on that end.

I'm thinking I should just put the unmanaged switch back and sell (at a loss) the new managed switch which I've just bought to save me the hastle!!

Any help or questions please ask...........

Cheers.

[Assistant]
AFAIK (un)managed has nothing to do with the switch throughput speed. An unmanaged that is equipped to handle 1Gbps will be equally fast as a managed switch with similar specs. An unmanaged (or dumb) switch will just direct all traffic to all ports without thinking about it. With a managed switch, you just have the possibility to configure certain more advanced network functions such as VLANs, QoS and others.

ddaenen1 said:
AFAIK (un)managed has nothing to do with the switch throughput speed. An unmanaged that is equipped to handle 1Gbps will be equally fast as a managed switch with similar specs. An unmanaged (or dumb) switch will just direct all traffic to all ports without thinking about it. With a managed switch, you just have the possibility to configure certain more advanced network functions such as VLANs, QoS and others.
Hi

Thanks for your input! Well I clearly have two options here as I know nothing about how to set a managed switch up....I either learn how to do it or sell it and install the unmanaged switch back in again.
The other thing I guess I must consider here is the fact that I can do all of the things you've mentioned in my router if I feel the need to so does that make the managed switch redundant?
I run a LAG from the managed switch to my NAS but again, my router can do that too!
The only thing that confuses me is the 2.5 Gbe? I don't get that at all on any of my ports including the LAG to the NAS. The max I ever see is 1Gbe.

My case is truly a "all the gear - no idea" scenario


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Unmanaged gigabit ethernet switch with modes

Hi networking experts (of which I am not),

TLDR: Which switch mode should I use in a mixed home network?

I bought an unmanaged 16-port gigabit switch online that has no documentation. It has a three position switch labelled in Chinese which seems to mean (standard, clone, isolation). It seems to work fine in standard mode but I googled to see what the other modes do and found this similar switch manual with four modes.
M1 Networking clone – Closed flow control on all ports to resolve speed drops in 10/100/1000Mbps mixed networks.
M2 Standard – Open flow control on all ports. Full gigabit switch capabilities in order to be used as a central switch. This is the default setting.
M3 Port trunking – Ports 23 and 24 act as a link aggregation group (static convergence: source MAC + destination MAC). Increases uplink bandwidth and reduces uplink bottlenecks to prevent data congestion.
M4 Port isolation – Ports 1-22 become isolated from each other. Ports 23 and 24 are the convergence of the upper joint. This mode can isolate broadcast storms, prevent ARP and DHCP spoofing, enhance network transmission rate and security. This mode is mainly used for internet cafes, schools, businesses and public networks
Other than M3 trunking mode, the other three modes match my switch. The isolation mode is for internet cafes and I'm at home... but the clone mode could be interesting as I do have mixed 1000/100 Mbps. I read your excellent article When Flow Control is not a Good Thing to learn about flow control. The article says "You can’t do this by changing to a different unmanaged gigabit switch, since all of them support 802.3x flow control, which can’t be disabled.". Am I wrong or does clone mode turn off flow control on all ports? Why would they call this clone mode if it disables flow control?

Question: Should I leave it on standard mode or use clone mode?

Bonus question: Help me understand trunking and isolation modes.

[Assistant]
Welcome to the forums @yoyoma2.

Use Standard mode for maximum throughput speeds. Be sure to flash any official firmware to the latest available for the switch you have. Port Isolation mode isn't valuable for you if you want a network of connected devices. It may be if you want all your wired capable devices on their own (effectively) networks though.

Port Trunking mode, (i.e. LAG) is worthwhile only when connected to another LAG-capable device (another switch, NAS, etc.). It will effectively double the network's bandwidth capacity in total (but not to any single device).

For the Networking Clone mode, you'll have to refer to the instructions for your specific router, for further details.

Standard should negotiate speed for all devices

Trunking/isolation in this sense allows segregated traffic to flow throw the trunk ports but not to adjacent ports

Trunking allows you to bundle the two interfaces for a faster uplink speed for all of the other ports. On this one it would provide 2ge instead of 1ge. In higher end switches these would probably be 10ge ports so the other ports would not be bottlenecked if they're saturated.

Clone might be a bad translation. Seems more like it might be a loopback option for testing the link to verify the cable is good.

yoyoma2 said:
Hi networking experts (of which I am not),

TLDR: Which switch mode should I use in a mixed home network?

I bought an unmanaged 12-port gigabit switch online that has no documentation. It has a three position switch labelled in Chinese which seems to mean (standard, clone, isolation). It seems to work fine in standard mode but I googled to see what the other modes do and found this with four modes.
Other than M3 trunking mode, the other three modes match my switch. The isolation mode is for internet cafes and I'm at home... but the clone mode could be interesting as I do have mixed 1000/100 Mbps. I read your excellent article to learn about flow control. The article says "You can’t do this by changing to a different unmanaged gigabit switch, since all of them support 802.3x flow control, which can’t be disabled.". Am I wrong or does clone mode turn off flow control on all ports? Why would they call this clone mode if it disables flow control?

Question: Should I leave it on standard mode or use clone mode?

Bonus question: Help me understand trunking and isolation modes.
Click to expand...
M1 Networking clone – Flow Control is disabled. You don't need it. It's not for you.
M2 Standard – Use this.
M3 Port trunking – Link Aggregation. You don't need it. It's not for you.
M4 Port isolation – VLAN. You don't need it. It's not for you.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: 2.5G, LAN aggregation, switch - oh my!

My Asus AX86U has a 2.5G port and supports LAN aggregation
My gigabit switch supports LACP
I picked up a 2.5G network card to toy with
My Unraid box and my desktop currently have 1G NICs. House is wired with CAT 6.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the topology to maximize read/write between my main desktop and unraid server.

Originally I was thinking about installing the 2.5G card in the server, bypassing the switch, plugging straight into the router.
Now in order to use that additional bandwidth, I was thinking of enabling a aggregated link (router, ports 1 & 2) to my switch.
Is that it? I guess if I stop there, in theory, multiple devices accessing the unraid box via my switch would benefit from the added bandwidth, but not any particular system.
I guess I'd need to 'continue' the aggregation straight to my desktop by adding another 1G card to it if I wanted to see >1G transfers?
If #2 is the case, I may need to rethink as I just got finished hiding my one CAT 7 connection to my desktop through closets, under carpets, etc. I'm not running another. I suppose I could do the reverse: put the 2.5G card in my desktop for the Cat 7 connection I have and aggregate two 1G connections on the server side... but it's more likely the added bandwidth (of the 2.5G card) would be more useful on the server side for the rest of the wired clients in the house.

Thoughts?

[Assistant]
If your ISP is <Gigabit - keep the router you already have and connect your 2.5GbE capable devices to 2.5GbE switch for faster LAN.

If your ISP is >Gigabit - the configuration above plus preplace your router with 2x 2.5GbE ports model, one for WAN and one for LAN.

Link Aggregation doesn't work well in Asuswrt. Don't waste too much time with it.

Home routers don't really have 2.5GbE capable hardware. You have to be careful what firmware options are enabled.

I was running LACP on my CM to get beyond 1gbps and bundled 2 x 1ge ports to it and worked just fine. Max speed hit ~1500mbps.

If you want internal access for the LAN to hit those higher speeds your cabling is fine. You'll want to upgrade the NIC or use a dongle on each device to hit 2.5gbps speeds. NICs are cheap it's the switch that will cost you a bit more but it's only $100-$150 for a switch that's unmanaged.

ISP <2.5> Router <2.5> Switch <> PC's

Tech9 said:
If your ISP is <Gigabit - keep the router you already have and connect your 2.5GbE capable devices to 2.5GbE switch for faster LAN.

If your ISP is >Gigabit - the configuration above plus preplace your router with 2x 2.5GbE ports model, one for WAN and one for LAN.

Link Aggregation doesn't work well in Asuswrt. Don't waste too much time with it.

Home routers don't really have 2.5GbE capable hardware. You have to be careful what firmware options are enabled.
Click to expand...
Definitely < Gigabit. I live in the boons

Thanks for the caution about not wasting too much time. I'm getting the sense that Asus tries to "tick all the boxes" from a marketing perspective but execution is lacking - is an ongoing trend with them. (I'm also trying to use load balancing for dual WAN with marginal success).

I didn't qualify my question with the goal of trying to 'maximize with what I already have'. It's not (currently) a big enough need that I would invest in other hardware (other than considering picking up a dedicated load balancer given the aforementioned dual WAN needs and sub-par Asus execution). I.e. it'll be a while before I pick up a 2.5G switch... but other than that I would agree with your recommendation, thank you.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Are there any performance advantages using an Integrated 2.5Gbps NIC verses addon PCI?

I just ordered a great Intel-based motherboard... however, I realized afterwards that it only has an integrated old-fashioned 1Gbps Ethernet NIC.

I'm curious is there any difference in performance/resource utilization/latency by using an Intel based 2.5Gbps addon NIC verses Integrated Intel 2.5Gbps NIC?

[Assistant]
MKANET said:
I just ordered a great Intel-based motherboard... however, I realized afterwards that it only has an integrated old-fashioned 1Gbps Ethernet NIC.

I'm curious is there any difference in performance/resource utilization/latency by using an Intel based 2.5Gbps addon NIC verses Integrated Intel 2.5Gbps NIC?
1gb is better than 2.5gb except speed. Intel 2.5gb chips are garbage.

follower said:
1gb is better than 2.5gb except speed. Intel 2.5gb chips are garbage.
Thanks for the advice. I was actually asking the performance difference between Integrated 2.5Gbps NICs verses the equivalent addon card. I definitely want to take advantage of the extra speed.

MKANET said:
Thanks for the advice. I was actually asking the performance difference between Integrated 2.5Gbps NICs verses the equivalent addon card. I definitely want to take advantage of the extra speed.
I doubt there would be any noticeable difference. It probably comes down to the particular motherboard/addon card in question.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: GS105 vs GS305

GS105 vs GS305 What is recommended between the two for the expansion of ports to the router?

[Assistant]
Those are both managed switches, AFAICT from a look at netgear.com. I agree that the difference between them isn't very clear (other than the fact that the GS305E is out of stock, which might mean it's about to be discontinued?).

But ... do you really need a managed switch rather than a simple plug-it-in-and-forget-it unmanaged switch? I'm a bit skeptical of the use-case for managed switches with only 5 ports.

ronorbar said:
GS105Ev2 vs GS305E What is recommended between the two for the expansion of ports to the router?
GS105E v1: End of life.
GS105E v2: Not End of life.
GS305E: Discontinued.
Do you have them? Yes.
Are they good? No.
Do you recommend them? No.
Port expansion: Unmanaged switch.

tgl said:
Those are both managed switches, AFAICT from a look at netgear.com. I agree that the difference between them isn't very clear (other than the fact that the GS305E is out of stock, which might mean it's about to be discontinued?).

But ... do you really need a managed switch rather than a simple plug-it-in-and-forget-it unmanaged switch? I'm a bit skeptical of the use-case for managed switches with only 5 ports.
Click to expand...
GS105E is a higher model of GS305E. GS305E doesn't support DHCP. Components of GS105E are better than GS305E.
Warranty.
GS105E: Life time.
GS305E: 3 years.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Realtek 2.5Gb: Have to unplug network cable after losing Internet or updating router firmware

I'm running Windows 11 and using the Realtek 2.5 Gb adapter built into my Asus B550 motherboard, and while it works well enough, it doesn't recover after the Internet goes down or I've updated the router firmware, which is an Asus XT8. I always have to unplug the network cable, and then things are fine after I plug it back in. I've tried ipconfig /renew to no avail, and I'm using the latest drivers and firmware. Any ideas?

[Assistant]
crawfish said:
I'm running Windows 11 and using the Realtek 2.5 Gb adapter built into my Asus B550 motherboard, and while it works well enough, it doesn't recover after the Internet goes down or I've updated the router firmware, which is an Asus XT8. I always have to unplug the network cable, and then things are fine after I plug it back in. I've tried ipconfig /renew to no avail, and I'm using the latest drivers and firmware. Any ideas?
That is a well known issue including Intel. All of 2.5gb nic in the market are garbage. That's why I recommend 10gb nic instead of 2.5gb. Many people buy 2.5gb nic because it's cheap. Buy 1gb nic or 10gb nic.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08D71PVXG/?tag=snbforums-20

Disable and enable in control panel.

RTL though usually isn't much of a problem child. I have one in my server with an ASR board that doesn't like the default Linux driver and required blacklisting it to force it to use the correct version. For me though it's just there as a backup since I'm using a ln aquantia quad port 5ge nic instead.

If Asus posted drivers on their website make sure you're using those and not the windows provided one.

I'm using the relevant driver direct from Realtek. Thanks for the control panel suggestion, I'll give it a try next time it happens. Fortunately, it's only an occasional annoyance.

ETA 3/9/23: Disabling/enabling the adapter in "Advanced network settings" works!


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: CAT.6 and CAT.7

In my case, CAT.7 is much better than CAT.6 for flexibility. CAT.6 is too stiff. I don't understand why they put the plastic spine in it. Of course I know how they work and why they make like that.

[Assistant]
FWIW We are using Cat 5e, which we had a local network installer put into every room of our home more than a decade ago, and too expensive to switch out. All new wiring will also be professionally installed, but Cat 6 (PoE doorbell and cameras).
My neighbor Jack is remodeling, and his quote:
"Cat 6 or Cat 7 whatever it takes." Remodel Link

Clark Griswald said:
FWIW We are using Cat 5e, which we had a local network installer put into every room of our home more than a decade ago, and too expensive to switch out. All new wiring will also be professionally installed, but Cat 6 (PoE doorbell and cameras).
My neighbor Jack is remodeling, and his quote:
"Cat 6 or Cat 7 whatever it takes." Remodel Link
I hate CAT.6. Please go with CAT.7.

Not sure I can live long enough for CAT6 or CAT7. I'm on CAT2. CAT1 worked for 16 years.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Access point with multiple SSIDs mapped to multiple VLANs

Hi, networking newbie here. I have opnsense set up on a mini PC and have just bought a TP link eap670 to use as a wifi AP. I have a both IoT devices and trusted devices (laptop, phone, etc) that are connected to my wifi so wish to have multiple SSIDs on my AP mapped to multiple VLANs (i.e one ssid and vlan for trusted devices and another for untrusted). Is this possible?

What I've read so far seems to indicate that each ethernet port can be tagged with one VLAN so how would the I have the single ethernet port to the AP mapping different VLANs? I'm sure this is a very stupid question but I'm also only just getting started out with networking so any help would be greatly appreciated

TIA

[Assistant]
A port can be tagged in one or more VLANs, untagged in one VLAN or untagged in one and tagged in one or more VLANS.

Yeah, the one port can definitely carry all your VLANs ... the concept wouldn't be much use otherwise. I don't know too much about these TP-Link units, but I do know that TP-Link mainly expects them to be managed through their "Omada Controller" software. It could be that managing VLAN associations is something that can only be done through that and not from the unit's standalone management GUI.

Note if Multi-SSID works the same as on my TP-Link WA-801 then each VLAN you use for a SSID will show up as tagged on the Ethernet port.
For example
SSID1 VLAN 7
SSID2 VLAN 20
SSID3 VLAN 300
VLAN 7, 20 and 300 will be tagged on the Ethernet port.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: 48 port Switch vs 24, 16, 8 etc.

Greetings all,

Over the years ive used switches of multiple capacities....from 8 to 48(in a centralized rack system). Its been disappointing to have some of the ports stop working on my 48 port switch. Unplugging it and sending off to repair is way more involved than if i would have stuck with multiples of smaller capacity switches.

Im hoping to get your opinion on a long term solution. Ports inevitably go bad. So how do i get around having a messy rack with multiple switches. Perhaps im missing something and breaking the ports myself? Not sure how i could be at fault but you never know.

The rack system is for home use. It has a dedicated electrical circuit with a surge protected outlet. A rack mounted ups is plugged to said outlet distributes power. The rack houses the ISP router/moden, switches, NAS, and cooling fans. (PS all Ethernet connected devices & ISP feed are also protected by UPS)

Would be great to hear your thoughts, opinions & Solutions.
Thanks
Sgt 76

[Assistant]
Sarge76 said:
Greetings all,

Over the years ive used switches of multiple capacities....from 8 to 48(in a centralized rack system). Its been disappointing to have some of the ports stop working on my 48 port switch. Unplugging it and sending off to repair is way more involved than if i would have stuck with multiples of smaller capacity switches.

Im hoping to get your opinion on a long term solution. Ports inevitably go bad. So how do i get around having a messy rack with multiple switches. Perhaps im missing something and breaking the ports myself? Not sure how i could be at fault but you never know.

The rack system is for home use. It has a dedicated electrical circuit with a surge protected outlet. A rack mounted ups is plugged to said outlet distributes power. The rack houses the ISP router/moden, switches, NAS, and cooling fans. (PS all Ethernet connected devices & ISP feed are also protected by UPS)

Would be great to hear your thoughts, opinions & Solutions.
Thanks
Sgt 76
Click to expand...

If you need a 48-port switch, you should probably have a spare for it.

OE

You must be a really unlucky chap. I've been rocking multiple switches, from small to big ones, for many many years all still in production and not even one of them has developed bad ports yet.

I had one damaged by lightning. This 48-port switch is unlikely needed for home setup. @Sarge76 perhaps plays with "home lab" setup and something faulty on the network or around power supplies damages the switch ports. The switch is not the issue. Ports don't go bad easily.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: VLAN not propagating to specific port on GS108T

I have a Netgate 1100 internet gateway. One of its ports is connected with a GS108PEv3, which powers three EnGenius WiFi access points and has a downstream GS108T connected to it. I cannot get connectivity on the configured port of the GS108T with a particular VLAN in use on the rest of my network. What am I missing?

Let me present the details. The OPT port on the Netgate 1100, to which the GS108PEv3 is connected, is tagged with VLAN IDs 5 and 6. The GS108PEv3’s Port 8, which connects to the Netgate 1100, as well as Ports 2–5 are tagged with VLAN IDs 5 and 6:

Ports 2–4 connect to the access points, and Port 5 connects to the GS108T’s Port 2. The GS108T is configured like this:

Is it correct to configure Port 6, where I want to plug in my laptop as “U?” I take it to mean that the “U” strips VLAN tag with the ID 5, which my laptop would not be able to be configured to do on its own.

Just so the untagged regular network does not leak through to port 6, I have configured VLAN ID 1 like this:

The other configuration pages on the VLAN tab are set up like this:

Is there anything wrong with these?

[Assistant] Can you be a bit more specific on what you are trying to achieve?


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Does magnet function necessary?

Hey guys, just wondering, do you think that magnet function is necessary for wired router/switch? since it could stick to the wall of the distribution box

[Assistant]
Just makes the physical installation easier. Unrelated to networking.

Tech9 said:
Just makes the physical installation easier. Unrelated to networking.
thanks for the feedback!


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: Outdoor PoE Equipment? Don't forget surge suppression...

Spring brings stormy weather, and it's around the corner. Not sure if others have posted about this, I didn't see much in the way regarding PoE surge protection in the forums, but can't hurt to have this info repeated nonetheless, especially because outdoor PoE devices are becoming more popular and widely-used.

If you have outdoor PoE equipment, or outdoor ethernet devices in general, surge suppression is absolutely necessary. I recently installed an outdoor PoE powered EAP, and hadn't given surge protection much thought, but after reading a number of horror stories, I ended up installing one inline between the Outdoor EAP and my PoE switch. It's a CITEL MJ8-POE-A, runs about $30 on Amazon. It has a 16kVA discharge rating, other devices have much higher discharge ratings, but figured it's better than nothing. I made a DIY ground wire which is connected to the main ground in my 200A circuit breaker panel.

Some damage photos I found from those who were unfortunate...

So post links/photos of PoE surge protectors you might already be using, and whether or not they have been put to the test, actually protecting equipment from genuine electrical surges.

[Assistant]
ForkWNY said:
surge suppression is absolutely necessary

It only gives you a chance. When a lightning strikes with 300million volts you may not even find this $30 Amazon surge protector after.

Tech9 said:
It only gives you a chance. When a lightning strikes with 300million volts you may not even find this $30 Amazon surge protector after.
You just have to hope the surge is stopped quickly enough and those gas discharge tubes do their job...as well as the avalanche diodes clamping down, breaking the circuit promptly enough to prevent further damage. I've observed surge protectors do their job well, while others seemed to do very little.

I had equipment loss through much more expensive commercial ABB surge protectors. They were blown along with Panasonic phone switching system, 16-port network switch, two HP computer work stations and miraculously one server network interface only with surviving motherboard. I don't know where exactly the lightning hit, but the surge protectors were vaporized and the electricity hit the network through few centimeters wide air gap.


[System] You are a professional Wi-Fi router support assistant; I will provide forum posts as background material, and you should learn from them while remaining aware that forum content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect — when uncertain, explicitly note that you are uncertain and refer the user to official documentation or other authoritative sources for verification.

[User]
Title: All over the place....

I think my TP Link TL SG116 unmanaged network switch is going wonkers because when I add an additional Asus AX6600 mesh node to it, the Asus web based GUI topology chart will show other wired backhaul nodes as being disconnected and then re-connect, this cycle will repeat itself constantly, with the up/down times lasting about 15 seconds.

Additionally 1 of the wired nodes is currently feeding off another wired node, the chart will show this, then incorrectly show it's connection as if it was wired directly to the switch, this cycle will repeat itself constantly as well.

If I disconnect the node causing the problem, the system will normalize after 30 seconds or so.

This particular switch has 16 ports, of which 9 are presently in use, so I don't think it's being overtaxed, the metal case is warm, but not hot to the touch. For what it's worth, I've a small fan directed at it which hasn't helped, the chart is still all over the place.

The switch is about 4 years old, should I condemn it? What has been other member's experiences with TP Link switches?

As a side note, I have very little faith in the accuracy in Asus's web based GUI itself, nor the app, I can rename the nodes location, after about 5 seconds it will revert back to "Home", which, I'm assuming is the default location name...

[Assistant]
I really doubt it's the switch's fault.

I'm wondering if the node is confused about packet forwarding rules and is creating two possible routing paths between everything on your LAN (i.e., either direct or via a wireless hop to the node and then out onto the LAN). That sort of forwarding loop can cause the kind of symptom you describe. Make sure the node thinks it is an access point and not a media bridge.

Mokume1 said:
this cycle will repeat itself constantly, with the up/down times lasting about 15 seconds.
I agree with Tgl, the cyclic nature of this does indicate that you're looping, and it looks like a spanning tree loop. You have a device on your network (possibly the switch or the node) that believes it is the root bridge of the network and is in conflict with the true root bridge. So, yeah, make sure your other node is set as an access point. If it already is, or if the change doesn't solve the problem, remove the TP Link switch and see if that resolves the issue.

Power down all your wired equipment. Including the modem/ONT. With the power cord physically disconnected and the power switch left 'On' (if possible).

Leave the power off for at least a couple of minutes or longer before powering everything up in the order below.

ISP modem/ONT - wait for it to be fully booted - about 5 minutes.
main router - wait for it to be fully booted...
switches
nodes - one at a time, waiting for each to be fully booted.
each hardwired device you have, one at a time.
For each of the steps above, where applicable, test that the network is working as expected. Until you turn on the next device.

Also, have you checked your Ethernet cables for possible issues? Test with a quality Cat5e cable to do so.

I would also discard/turn that fan off too...