The Networking board's Frequently Asked Questions, Pre-answered!

[LAwLz]

Got a question you think lots of people have asked before? Then this topic is for you! (Most likely not final version, any suggestions for improvements are very welcomed).

Things to do (feel free to leave suggestions):

Edit the order from most common to least common question.

Suggest some good routers in different price brackets.

Suggest some VPN providers.

Maybe add more questions.

General polishing.

 

 

 

Why is my Internet so slow?

Spoiler

This can be caused by a lot of things. First of all, are you sure it is slower than what you are paying for? Megabits and Megabytes are not the same thing (more about this can be found later in the post).

• Turn off all your devices except the one you are going to test on
• Stop all programs which use a lot of bandwidth, like µTorrent and things like that.
• Go to speedtest.net and run the test.

This test will tell you the speed you are getting in megabits or kilobits.

Another reason you might not get the speeds you are expecting is that your ISP is throttling you. A lot of ISPs throttles traffic such as torrents. What this means is that they deliberately lower your speed for certain types of traffic. If this is happening, then there is not much you can do sadly.

You should also try making a reset on your router. It is a little button on the back inside a small hole. That fixes like 90% of the most common issues.

If you are using a wireless connection, then there are a lot of different factors determining what speed you are getting. In most homes, even a fairly low end wireless router is good enough to not bottleneck you, but if you got for example a 100Mbps connection, then you might want to consider upgrading your router and/or network cards for your wireless devices. More about this can be found in “how can I improve my wireless speed?”.

 

How can I improve my wireless speed?

Quick list of things you can do to improve your wireless speeds:

Spoiler

The speed you are getting depends on a lot of factors. A few years ago, wireless G was fairly common with a maximum theoretical speed of 54Mbps. That sounds like quite a lot but you have to take into consideration that wireless is quite inefficient, so you usually only get about half the theoretical bandwidth, in this case 27Mbps. Still sounds like a lot, right? Well that’s megabits, so if we convert that to megabytes we get about 3.5MBps. You also have to take into consideration that all wireless devices shares this bandwidth, so if you got 3 devices on the network trying to send and receive, they will only get about 1MBps each, which isn’t a whole lot.

• Restart your router – Before you look into buying expensive equipment you might want to try simply restarting the router and see if it improves. I recommend you unplug it for 5-10 minutes before plugging it in again. This lets the router cool for a bit which might be the cause of low performance.
   
• Change channel – You have probably heard the term channel before and I won’t really go into what they are. What you should know is that on the 2.4GHz band, you want to use channels that are 5 channels away from each other to avoid interference. If your neighbor uses channel 1, then you should use channel 6 or higher. Most routers will automatically pick the best channel to use when they start, so simply restarting your router might help with this. If you want to figure out what channels your neighbors use then you can do so with a program such as inSSIDer.
   
• Change position – Contrary to popular belief, omnidirectional antennas which most network equipment uses do not produce perfect spheres of radiation. The coverage area is more like a donut so directly above or below the antenna you will get low signal strength. The higher the gain an antenna has, the flatter the donut becomes. Experiment a bit with different locations until you find a good one. You want it to be:
  -Not too far from the devices, so placing it in the middle of your house might be a good idea if you want coverage everywhere.
  -So that it has the least amount of solid objects to pass through. Put it on top of the shelf instead of inside a box on the shelf for example. A denser material affects the signal even more, so if you have to pick between putting it behind a wooden wall or a concrete wall, then pick the wooden wall.
  -Not too close to other 2.4GHz equipment like your microwave and you should also avoid things like fluorescent lighting.
  -If you have external antennas you can adjust, then don’t point them all in the same direction. You want to have them a bit separated because that maximizes the chance that one of them gets a clean signal.
   
• Update router firmware – In some cases updating the firmware on your router will improve the performance and compatibility with other devices. Please note that is not risk free and a power outage during an update might brick your router. The latest firmware can be found on the manufacturers’ website.
   
• Set it to wireless N only – This is only recommended if you only use 802.11n devices. In order to keep backwards compatibility with older devices, 802.11n has to use things like “b/g protection”. I won’t explain how it works but all you need to know is that it slows down 802.11n compatible devices if it is used. Most good routers will automatically switch to 802.11n mode and disable b/g protection if it doesn’t detect any 802.11b or 802.11g device on the network, but turning it off ensures that you get the full 802.11n bandwidth at all times. Again, devices that do not support 802.11n will no longer be able to connect to the network if you do this, so please make sure all your devices are 802.11n compatible.
   
• Third party firmware – You can get third party firmware with extra features for some routers. The most popular third party firmwares are dd-wrt and Tomato. These firmwares might improve performance and you can also increase the output power on your router with them. Please note that there are restrictions and regulations about how much power you are allowed to output, so cranking up the power too much might damage your hardware, and it might be illegal as well. Please note that this is not possible on all routers, and they might also be buggier and perform worse than the stock firmware.
   
• Add another router, access point or repeater – This one is pretty self-explanatory. One thing you need to remember though is that with repeaters and range extenders, each extra device (device as in networking equipment, not device like a phone or laptop) will cut your bandwidth in half. If both your router and your extended are rated for 300Mbps, then you will only get 150Mbps of theoretical bandwidth (and then about half of that in real world bandwidth). If you connect two routers with a cable then both will work at full speed.
   
• Upgrade antenna – If you use a router with detachable antennas then upgrading antennas might help. If you get antennas with higher gain (measured in dBi) you will get longer range. Please make sure the new antennas fit on your router before ordering. Not all routers use the same connector.
   
• New router or NICs – Chances are your router isn’t that good, especially not if you use the one your ISP gave you. If you are interested in what to look for when buying a new router then see the “what to look for when buying a router” section.

If you want to add a second router to the network then you will have to do some special configuration. You must either put your new router into “Access Point mode” (might be called something else on your router) or put the old router into “Bridge Mode” (might be called something else on your router). This varies from router to router so I can’t explain how to do it on all routers. It’s just to let you know that if you plug two routers into each other, your network won’t really work until you change these options. You also want to only have 1 DHCP server and 1 firewall. If you put your old router into bridge mode, then turn off DHCP and the firewall on it. If you put your new router into access point mode, then turn off DHCP and the firewall on that router.

 

What do the different wireless standards (802.11n, 802.11ac, etc) mean?

Spoiler

I am not going to go into how the different modulations work or anything like that. If you want to know about it then you are going to have to Google it yourself. This is just a quick summary of the core differences between the different standards. Please note that different implementations may have different real world performance.

 

802.11a:

• Maximum bandwidth: 54Mbps
• Frequency band: 5GHz
• Approximate outdoor range*: 120 meters (390ft)
   

802.11b:

• Maximum bandwidth: 11Mbps
• Frequency band: 2.4GHz
• Approximate outdoor range*: 140 meters (460ft)
   

802.11g:

• Maximum bandwidth: 54Mbps
• Frequency band: 2.4GHz
• Approximate outdoor range*: 140 meters (460ft)
   

802.11n:

• Maximum bandwidth: 600Mbps per band
• Frequency band: 2.4GHz standard and optionally 5GHz.
• Approximate outdoor range*: 250 meters (820ft)
   

802.11ac:

• Maximum bandwidth: 3.47Gbps
• Frequency band: 5GHz
• Approximate outdoor range*: No estimate yet but probably about the same as 802.11n at 5GHz, or slightly shorter, but more robust signal when in range.

*according to Wikipedia

 

What happened to 802.11c, d e, f and all the other gaps? They still exist and a lot of routers use them. It’s just that they are not standards for how to send data so consumers don’t encounter them as often. For example, 802.11e defines standards related to QoS over wireless networks. 802.11i is a standard for security mechanics and encryption, which the WiFi Alliance used to create WPA2.
Please note that if you have an 802.11n device and connect to an 802.11ac network, you will only get 802.11n speeds (and it will slightly reduce the speed for 802.11ac devices on the network).

 

2.4GHz vs. 5GHz and what does dual band mean?

Spoiler

As shown in the “what do the different wireless standards mean?” part above, different standards use different frequencies. To understand the benefits and drawbacks of each band, as well as why dual band is good we must first learn a bit about how wireless networks work.

 

Wireless networks use a shared medium, and are half duplex. Shared medium means that all users share the same bandwidth. With a cable, your computer doesn’t have to take into consideration if someone else is sending data, but with wireless it does. Half duplex means that you can only send or receive data at once. So if you have 10 devices who all want to send data on the same network, 9 of them have to wait while 1 sends. Of course, they will take turn to send packets so we usually don’t notice it, but it still have a great impact on performance. The reason why two devices can’t send is because the radio waves would interfere with each other.

Dual band is a way to avoid these two drawbacks. By sending data with two different frequencies, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, devices on the two different networks won’t interference with each other. That means that if you got one 2.4GHz network and one 5GHz network, devices on the two networks won’t interference with each other, and can therefore send and receive at the same time. Devices on the same network with the same frequency will still interfere with each other though, but if you split up your devices on the different bands you will effectively get twice the bandwidth. That’s why you see routers with 300Mbps + 300Mbps speed ratings. 300Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, and 300Mbps on the 5GHz band, at the same time.

Now, good and bad things about the 5GHz band. The good thing is that fewer devices use it, so you get a cleaner and more reliable signal. Microwaves, cordless phones, baby monitors and many other devices use the 2.4GHz band, and that causes lots of interference, especially microwave ovens.
Another good thing about the 5GHz band has more channels. Without going into detail, more channels = more networks can be close to each other without interfering.
Yet another good thing about 5GHz is that the channels are wider, which means you get higher speeds. It is possible to increase the width of the 2.4GHz channels as well, but you should NOT do that unless you live in the middle of nowhere. It causes a lot of interference. Sorry for sounding like a broken record about interference but it is a very big problem with wireless networks, so it gets brought up a lot.
5GHz has one drawback, and that’s that it’s worse at penetrating solid objects such as walls. If you live in a house with lots of walls, then you might get a significant decrease in range on the 5GHz band.

Summary of the 5GHz band: Faster, less interference from things like microwaves, you can have more networks around you without interference but it has shorter range.

What is QoS?

Spoiler

Quality of Service, or QoS, is a technology which lets you prioritize certain kinds of traffic. What this means is that if you are downloading something, playing a game and talking on Skype, you might prioritize so that your game and Skype doesn’t lag, at the cost of the download being slightly slower. So to be clear, you won't get higher overall Internet speeds, but things which are sensitive to delays will get higher speeds, and things that are not as sensitive, such as downloads, will get lower speeds.

 

A lot of the higher end modern routers support this feature, and the third party firmwares Tomato and dd-wrt supports this as well. Lower end or older routers might not have this feature, or their implementation of it might be poor, so that’s something you should take into consideration.

What is the difference between a router, a switch and a modem?

Spoiler

A router is something that routes packets from one network to another. If you want to send a packet from network A to network B, then you have to have a router between them. You can’t link two routers together without special configurations (more on that can be found in “how to improve my wireless speed”).

 

A switch is a device that can send packets from one device to another device if they are on the same network. You can link several switches together without having to think about anything special. They are just “plug and play”.

 

A modem takes the signal you get through your telephone and/or TV line and converts it into a standard Ethernet signal.

 

Consumer routers are actually routers and switches, all in one. Some of them also include a modem built in. When people say routers, they usually talk about the router/switch combo.

 

What should I look for when buying a router?

Spoiler

When buying a new router, you want to take at least 6 things into consideration.

• Bandwidth and standard used for wireless – When I say standard used, I am talking about 802.11n or 802.11ac. You should not get a, b or g these days because they are very outdated. So do you want 802.11n or 802.11ac? AC is faster, but barely any devices uses it at this point in time and it will drop in price quite a lot in the future. Please remember that you need both the router as well as the device to be compatible with 802.11ac to take advantage of the increased speed. Also, if you only got one 802.11ac device and maybe four 802.11n devices on the network then the single 802.11ac device might drop down to 802.11n speeds. 802.11ac is more future proof though, since it will slowly replace 802.11n just like 802.11n has replaced 802.11g over the years.
   
• FastEthernet or Gigabit – This is for the ports you plug your devices into the router with a cable. FastEthernet, also called 10/100Mbps, is usually what you get on lower end devices. 100Mbps translates to 12.5MBps minus overhead. If you only use your computer for accessing things on the Internet then this will most likely be more than enough. If you run a NAS or send files to other computers on your local network (let’s say your desktop to your laptop) then you will be very, very bottlenecked by 12.5MBps. If you have a NAS then you basically have to use Gigabit Ethernet, which translates to 125MB/s (10 times as fast as 100Mbps). Gigabit Ethernet might also be called 10/100/1000Mbps.
   
• Single or dual band – I talked about this before. Read the section about “2.4GHz vs. 5GHz and what does dual band mean” if you are not sure if you want dual band or not. In summary, if you got lots of devices and/or live somewhere with a lot of networks around you, get a dual band router.
   
• Features – When I say features I mean things like QoS (has its own section), parental control, VPN, DMZ and so on. Most high end routers (100 dollars+) have good implementation of all the features you might want for a home network.
   
• Modem – If you are using ADSL (when you plug your router into the phone outlet) or coaxial (when you plug your router into the same kind of hole as your TV) then you are going to need a modem somewhere in your network. It can be a standalone modem, or it can be built into your router. The router your ISP gave you most likely has it built in, and a lot of the higher end aftermarket routers do not have it built in. You can however plug a new router (which does not have a modem) into your old router, and but the old one into “bride mode” or something along those lines. Your old router will now act solely as a modem, and your new router will do all the routing. Having it built in is a more elegant solution, but usually is more expensive or performs worse. If you got fiber then you will not need a modem.
   
• Antennas (detachable or internal) – Detachable antennas are good because you can also replace them with better antennas. Please note that not all routers use the same connector so antenna X might work on router Y, but not on router Z. Internal antennas can’t be replaced which might be a bad thing, or it might not matter. Just because a router has internal antennas does not mean it is bad, just that you will be stuck with the ones you get out of the box, which might very well be enough for your needs.

 

What is port forwarding and how do I do it?

Spoiler

Port forwarding is used when you want computers on the Internet to be able to access a specific computer on your LAN when you are behind NAT (Network Address Translation) which 99% of you who are reading this will  be. This is needed if you run a server such as Minecraft. The tricky part is that most routers have different ways to do this.

 

Portforward.com has guides for a huge amount of router models and programs. Just search for your router model, and then the program you want to portforward. You are probably going to need to know the IP address for your computer. You can see this by typing ipconfig in cmd on Windows. It should look like this. The red line shows you what your IP address is.

 

 

How do I access my router's web interface?

Spoiler

If you want to access the web interface and change things on your router/switch/modem, then all you have to do is open your browser and type in the IP address for it. The IP address is usually the first or last IP address on your network. The most common ones are:

• 192.168.1.1
• 192.168.2.1
• 192.168.0.1
• 192.168.0.254
• 192.168.1.254
• 10.1.1.1

If none of those worked, or if you don't feel list testing all of them, then you can open up cmd and type ipconfig if you are on Windows. You then want to look for the address after "Default Gateway". That will be your routers IP address.

 

Simply type that in your address bar in your web browser and press enter. You should see a window asking for username and password popup. The default username and password can be found in your routers manual, or in this list (or on a sticker on the bottom of your router).

 

What is the difference between Megabit and Megabyte?

Spoiler

When you buy a service plan from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) they will tell you how many megabits per second you can get with this plan. Let's say they say you can get 8Mbps, but when you download something it seems like you aren't getting anything near that speed. You don't even get 1MBps, right?The reason is that a Megabit and a Megabyte are different things. 1 byte is 8 bits. That means that in order to see how many Megabytes you can get per second, you have to take the Megabits and divide by 8. In our example with an 8 Megabit plan, our maximum speed in Megabytes is 8/8, which is 1. Our maximum speed is 1 Megabyte per second.

A lot of confusion occurs when people talk about their Internet speed and don't separate these two terms. If you want to write it properly and avoid confusing, then please write it like this:
MB = Megabyte
Mb = Megabit
Big B means the bigger one. Small b means the smaller one.

If you want to refer to the speed of something, then please add /s or ps, like this:
MBps or MB/s (Megabytes per seconds)
or
Mbps or Mb/s (Megabits per seconds)

1000 bits or bytes, is one kilobit or kilobyte. 1000 kilobits or kilobytes is one megabit or megabyte, and so on. Before anyone asks, 1000 bits is one kilobit, it’s not 1024.
When talking about network speeds, bits are almost always used.

 

I have heard about this thing called pfSense, what is it?

Spoiler

pfSense is an operating system based on FreeBSD designed for routing and acting as a firewall. It has lots and lots of features usually only found on enterprise grade hardware from companies like Cisco and HP.

 

A lot of people on the Internet seem to really like pfSense for some reason. The rest of this section will mostly be my opinion on why I think pfSense isn’t that good for most people.

First of all, cost. pfSense is installed on normal desktop hardware. This means that if you got an old computer you don’t use, you can install it on that. This might sound good at first but in most cases you will have to buy addon cards like NICs to make your old computer usable as a router. This means that you will have to spend at least a decent amount of money to get your old computer running pfSense and working as you want to. If you just sell the parts you can most likely afford a very good router, and have money to spare.

Another drawback of having a pfSense router is that you will most likely not have it passively cooled like a normal router, so it will make much more noise. It will also use significantly more power than a normal consumer router.

A third drawback of pfSense is that the wireless support on it is abysmal. According to pfSense’s website, you can’t get 802.11n working in pfSense. Even if the wireless card you got installed supports 802.11n, and it looks like an 802.11n network, you will still only get 802.11g speeds. This means that if you want wireless, you either have to stick with 802.11g speeds, or get a regular router as well. If you are going to get a consumer router as well, what’s the point of the pfSense router?

So buying a good consumer is cheaper, makes less noise, less time consuming, uses less power and will have much better wireless networking. What are the benefits then? The benefits of pfSense is that it supports things like 802.11q (VLANs) and RADIUS. Never heard of those things before? That’s because they are pretty much useless in a home network, and only makes sense for enterprise networks. So the drawbacks are many and the benefits won’t benefit 99.9% of the people on this forum. For the other 0.1% though, pfSense might be great. It's one of those things where "if you have to ask, it's probably not for you".

Anyway, if you are interested in pfSense then I suggest you try it in a virtual machine first. Here is a video on how to set it up in VirtualBox. That way you can try it out before deploying it on real hardware.

 

Ssoele has written a very good guide for pfSense. If you got questions on how to configure something then check it out.

 

What is a VPN and do I need one?

Spoiler

A Virtual Private Network (or VPN for short) is a virtual LAN which runs on top of another network, such as the Internet. What this means is that all devices connected to a VPN will act as if they were on the same local network (as if they were all in the same house). You’ve probably heard that people rent VPNs and when they do that they make a private network between themselves and a VPN provider. This link is usually encrypted (please note that a VPN is not necessarily encrypted, but if you are renting one I can almost guarantee you that they offer encryption).

 

To understand the benefits we first need to understand how a VPN works.

If you are renting a VPN service and want to login to Linus Tech Tips your computer will first send your username and password to your VPN provider over an encrypted link. This means that nobody between you and the VPN will be able to see what you are doing. If you was on an open network (for example Starbucks or McDonald’s) and logged in to LinusTechTips everyone in the same store could potentially see your account name and password (since they were sent to the server unencrypted).
Your computer basically shouted “hey I am LAwLz and my password is SuperSecretPa55, can you please send that to LinusTechTips?” and the router at the store would hear that and send it to the server hosting LinusTechTips. If you instead used a VPN then your computer would have shouted “Gni3rSF80t3 FWEQN80g4n 0IWEGuy3 in0gwe. Please send that to my VPN provider”. Your VPN provider knows how to interpret the gibberish, but nobody else does. So one benefit is security. Please note that the link between your VPN provider and LinusTechTips would still be unencrypted, so your VPN provider would get the message filled with gibberish, translate it into the original message and then send that to the LinusTechTips server.

So the benefit is that nobody between you and your VPN provider will know what you are doing. If your ISP is known to throttle torrents for example, you can use a VPN to hide your traffic.

Another benefit is that the server you access (in our previous example it was LinusTechTips) will think that it is the VPN making the request. That means that if you rent a VPN service located in the US, all websites and services you use will think that you are in the US. That means that you get access to the US version of NetFlix, access to Hulu and other services like that.

Something a rented VPN doesn’t do is protect your privacy. First of all most of them cost money so you have to give them your private details such as name and credit card number. Secondly, the VPN provider will still see everything you do. Your ISP might not be able to see that you are downloading the latest Justin Bieber album, but your VPN provider will be able to see that, and the VPN provider’s ISP will see that the VPN provider is downloading illegal things.

 

This can go four ways:

• Your ISP might become suspicious why you are sending so much encrypted traffic to your VPN provider (your ISP can still see where you send traffic to, but not what kind of traffic it is) and demand that your VPN provider shows who is downloading and what he/she is downloading.
• Your VPN provider notices that you are using their connection to do illegal things and reports you.
• The VPN provider’s ISP gets suspicious and demands that the ISP provides details on who is using their service to download illegal things.
• Nobody cares and you can download all you want.

 

Some routers allow you to run your own VPN. For example I got a VPN running on my router and what this means is that I can access my NAS while I am at school for example, or if I want to login to a website that doesn’t support HTTPS then I can connect to my VPN and login. Since you control both endpoints of the VPN, nobody except you will know what files are being sent. The downside is that most people have really bad upload speed so that will bottleneck you heavily if you run your own VPN.

 

[565465464]

Nice thread, 10.0.0.1 is also used sometimes as standard gateway on some routers (at least some Zyxel routers).

 

You could also add some information about static leases

[JaanMan]

In the improving wireless, I suggest adding another way. Putting a cooler below the router/modem. I've experience this, heat most of the time can get these devices not to function fully as they suppose to. A simple notebook cooler can add some airflow to it, reducing the amount of heat on the device itself.

 

Next is the port forwarding part i'd like to add. Before doing the port forwards on the router, assign a static IP to your computer first. This is because most home users will just run things out-of-the-box. Which means they will use a DHCP server and will assign a different internal IP for the computer every time it connects. If you want to keep the existing port forward setting specifically to a certain pc, static internal IP will be better.

And i'd like to add one more tips for others. Sometimes people will complain about transferring files through LANs is slow (eg 3mb/s) even though they have Gigabit connections or just any 10/100 connections. This is because Windows will usually set the speed to Auto Negotiate. Everytime windows detect some older connections, they will assign the 10mbps speed to the LAN connection instead of 100mpbs or 1gbps.
You can change this setting by doing this.

 

In Windows XP -->
Right click your LAN connection and select Open Network Connections, then double click your LAN connection. After that click Configure, then navigate to the Advance tab and choose Link Speed/Duplex Mode. From there you can choose up to 100Mbps Full Duplex if you are on a 10/100 connection or up to 1Gbps/1000Mbps Full Duplex if you are on a Gigabit connection.

 

In Windows 7/8 -->
Go to your Network & Sharing center and click on your LAN Connection(Ethernet). After that everything is same as above.

 

Most people will find this useless but for me when I'm copying large amount of Datas across the network (eg. Backing up a computer to a home server or copying games across computers), I found that this can save me lots of time.

Other than that, Nice FAQ Thread you got here. Keep Up The Good Work

[Ssoele]

Nice thread, this should be pinned!

[legopc]

good thread we need more of these well done martin  

[Sheldon]

Great thread! Well done!

[rufee]

Need more ports on your router ? Looked into switches, but you are confused with the naming ?
Here are the types of switches you might encounter when shopping for one:

• Unmanaged or "dumb" switches. These types of switches do not have any user configurable options and are best suited for home users who wish to expand their network or just add extra ports to their router. These switches are ready to use out of the box.
• Smart switches. A tier down from managed ones, these switches offer the ability to configure some options like QoS and VLAN's via a web interface and are best suited for users who need a slightly tighter control over their network.
• Managed switches. A switch that offers even more features usually suited for enterprise users and large networks, these switches can often be stacked. A serial CLI interface is usually provided for management and configuration.

Switches usually come in standard port number configurations 5,8,16,24,48 (Usable ports = number of ports - 1).

I need to run ethernet cable, but i don't know what the Cat symbol on the wire means

The "Cat" or category is a cable rating system and it tells the user how much the cable can handle in terms of speed and interference. Here are the most common categories you will encounter:

• Category 3 or Cat3 cable, is a very old standard that allows the wire to carry speeds up to 10mbps, it is no longer used for internet, but instead is still used for telephone wiring.
• Category 5e or Cat5e, the most common cable type right now, it can handle 100mbps and 1gbps speeds.
• Category 6 or Cat6 in addition to being able to handle more interference it can also handle 10gbps speeds, though at reduced distance.
• Category 7 or Cat7 or Class F cable is rated for full length 10gbps operation.

All these cables (except Cat7) come in two types: STP (or FTP in EU) this is a shielded cable and UTP (unshielded cable). A maximum length of a ethernet cable is 330ft (100m), going further you risk signal degradation.

 

[cheezewhisperer]

F'n awesome! Many things us noobs need to know

[ANUPLUCIFERGAMER]

Can i use a switch for daily use? And,i don't know how to use a switch. Can someone help?

[RobV]

In the improving wireless, I suggest adding another way. Putting a cooler below the router/modem. I've experience this, heat most of the time can get these devices not to function fully as they suppose to. A simple notebook cooler can add some airflow to it, reducing the amount of heat on the device itself.

Next is the port forwarding part i'd like to add. Before doing the port forwards on the router, assign a static IP to your computer first. This is because most home users will just run things out-of-the-box. Which means they will use a DHCP server and will assign a different internal IP for the computer every time it connects. If you want to keep the existing port forward setting specifically to a certain pc, static internal IP will be better.

And i'd like to add one more tips for others. Sometimes people will complain about transferring files through LANs is slow (eg 3mb/s) even though they have Gigabit connections or just any 10/100 connections. This is because Windows will usually set the speed to Auto Negotiate. Everytime windows detect some older connections, they will assign the 10mbps speed to the LAN connection instead of 100mpbs or 1gbps.

You can change this setting by doing this.

In Windows XP -->Right click your LAN connection and select Open Network Connections, then double click your LAN connection. After that click Configure, then navigate to the Advance tab and choose Link Speed/Duplex Mode. From there you can choose up to 100Mbps Full Duplex if you are on a 10/100 connection or up to 1Gbps/1000Mbps Full Duplex if you are on a Gigabit connection.

In Windows 7/8 -->

Go to your Network & Sharing center and click on your LAN Connection(Ethernet). After that everything is same as above.

Most people will find this useless but for me when I'm copying large amount of Datas across the network (eg. Backing up a computer to a home server or copying games across computers), I found that this can save me lots of time.

Other than that, Nice FAQ Thread you got here. Keep Up The Good Work

Thank you, the transfer speeds with my voyager air when connected as a NAS have been driving me crazy

[Darren]

Should make some recommendations for routers at difference price ranges. That's something that's asked very frequently.

[TheNinjaNextDor]

Cat6 or Ethernet for router to PC and router to modem and router to NAS?

[Blade of Grass]

Cat6 or Ethernet for router to PC and router to modem and router to NAS?

Pardon? 

Cat 6 is a type of cable used for Ethernet. There's also Cat 5(e), Cat 6(a), Cat 7 etc

[TheNinjaNextDor]

Pardon?

Cat 6 is a type of cable used for Ethernet. There's also Cat 5(e), Cat 6(a), Cat 7 etc

Thanks. I was wondering because I hear CAT 6 is for wiring houses and not a direct connection.

[Blade of Grass]

Thanks. I was wondering because I hear CAT 6 is for wiring houses and not a direct connection.

No, that's incorrect.

[Apparate]

Why do I frequently unable to go to certain website? Sometime when I refresh Youtube page I will be prompted that "The webpage is not availabe", also happens to Facebook where I cannot load further down(sometime images won't load) and other weird stuffs....Should I get a new router? Note that while this happens, I can happily browse through other websites.

[LAwLz]

Why do I frequently unable to go to certain website? Sometime when I refresh Youtube page I will be prompted that "The webpage is not availabe", also happens to Facebook where I cannot load further down(sometime images won't load) and other weird stuffs....Should I get a new router? Note that while this happens, I can happily browse through other websites.

It's best to post that in its own thread. My guess would be that it has something to do with your DNS, but post it as a separate thread and you'll get better help.

[Sharif]

10 out of 10 recommended

nice thread   

[PKmaniac123]

Hello im new here.Thank you,very nice and helpful thread

[Helios79]

I'd also add a quick section on IPv4 subnets, and what the difference is between a Class A, Class B, and Class C subnet.

 

Class A example: 10.0.0.0/12 - Supports up to 16,777,616 IP addresses - 2^24 - Subnet Mask: 255.0.0.0

Class B example: 172.10.0.1/16 - Supports up to 65,534 IP addresses - 2^16 - Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0

Class C example: 192.168.0.1/24 - Supports up to 254 IP addresses - 2^8 - Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

 

To calculate the amount of IP's in a  subnet, use the power of 2^bits in an octet. There are 8 bits in an octet (X.X.X.X).

 

.0 is your netmask, .1 is usually your gateway, and .255 is usually your broadcast.

[LAwLz]

I'd also add a quick section on IPv4 subnets, and what the difference is between a Class A, Class B, and Class C subnet.

 

Class A example: 10.0.0.0/12 - Supports up to 16,777,616 IP addresses - 2^24 - Subnet Mask: 255.0.0.0

Class B example: 172.10.0.1/16 - Supports up to 65,534 IP addresses - 2^16 - Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0

Class C example: 192.168.0.1/24 - Supports up to 254 IP addresses - 2^8 - Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

 

To calculate the amount of IP's in a  subnet, use the power of 2^bits in an octet. There are 8 bits in an octet (X.X.X.X).

 

.0 is your netmask, .1 is usually your gateway, and .255 is usually your broadcast.

I thought of adding that but decided against it.

It's not a common question. The people who needs to know about it will learn about it in school and for the rest it is pretty irrelevant.

Besides, classed subnets are dead since a long time ago. Someone wrote a subnetting guide on the forum before. Maybe I'll add a link to that thread.

[Helios79]

Unless you have an internal network running IPv6, classed subnets are far from dead. Understanding them is still a focal point in CompTIA N+ and Cisco certification. Ever dealt with MikroTik hardware? You need to understand how subnets work if you deal with RouterOS.

 

Perhaps it is a bit much for Joe User to understand, but we are not exactly a Joe User community.

[LAwLz]

Unless you have an internal network running IPv6, classed subnets are far from dead. Understanding them is still a focal point in CompTIA N+ and Cisco certification. Ever dealt with MikroTik hardware? You need to understand how subnets work if you deal with RouterOS.

Perhaps it is a bit much for Joe User to understand, but we are not exactly a Joe User community.

It's good to understand how it works, but classed networking (classed as in A, B, C etc networks, not /8, /16, /24 etc) is dead since a long time ago. I doubt you'll find many networks not using CIDR these days.

Remember, if you're using classed networking you can't have for example /30 on your links, or /25 for let's say the guest network. As soon as you start subnetting, you're not using classed networks anymore.

I didn't include a guide on subnetting not because "it's too much for the average Joe to understand", but because I don't think it's a frequently asked question. If you look at the first let's say 5 pages on the forum I doubt you'll even find 1 thread asking about it.

If you're going to take a networking course then it'll be one of the first things you learn, but this is mostly a forum where people ask questions about their own setups. They don't come here to study.

[Matacks]

Thanks! This guide is really helpful.

[stuka06]

I have found from personal experience, that testmy.net provides more reliable results compared to speedtest.