Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs Forum

Hello Scott working at a clients garage, and needs a simple network switch to add PC's upstairs.

At Present the customer has a simple 4-port ADSL Router. One port is used for the downstairs PC, one port goes upstairs and the other two are unused.

The customer has two PC's upstairs and will probably need to add a network printer at some point so thinking of getting an 8-port for expansion (the room's not big enough to house more than that!!)

At my place I have a 24!!! port switch which acts as "invisible" i.e it has no setup needed it acts just as an "extension lead" for my own Router and the PC's i plug into it just get a DHCP address from my ADSL Router

So I need a similar (probably 8-port) router for the customer that is "invisible"

Hope this post is clear

Just about any inexpensive gigabit switch would be fine for that application. What I would do is get a couple of them, use one at the router, the other where you need more expansion.

In otherwords, at the router you would connect one cable from the router to the first switch, then connect the cables that are currently connected to the router to the new gigabit switch instead. Then set the second switch upstairs and connect the cable from the first switch to the second one, then connect all of the devices upstairs to the 2nd switch. Let me know what you get and how it works out, Scott.

Thank you Scott

Must say you got me wondering why it's best to connect them "in pairs" like this, is it to ensure compatibility, or maybe to see if the remote link (cable running up the stairs) is faulty???

David

Because for the situation proposed, using two switches as I described would mean no additional cables would need to be run from the existing router/switch to the upstairs. Scott.