Can you connect multiple inputs on a switch ?

[BmxDmx]

I just bought a 24 port switch and my knowledge about networking are close to non-existing . After i connected my switch to my router and my PC to the switch i saw that my internet speed dropped by about 70%, and now i am wondering if you can connect more than 1 input cables from the router and if this will make any difference at all ?

[minibois]

Just now, BmxDmx said:

I just bought a 24 port switch and my knowledge about networking are close to non-existing . After i connected my switch to my router and my PC to the switch i saw that my internet speed dropped by about 70%, and now i am wondering if you can connect more than 1 input cables from the router and if this will make any difference at all ?

The term you are looking for is 'Link Aggregation' and it is only present on managed switches and even then only the little bit over budget range of those.

It shouldn't make a difference though, if you have a gigabit switch. If nothing else (except your router and PC)  is plugged into the switch, you should retain 100% (or close to 100%) of the speed.

 

So if you grab the cable from your router that now goes into your switch and plug it into your PC, what speeds do you get?

What else is plugged into the switch? What speeds do you have?

[BmxDmx]

6 minutes ago, minibois said:

The term you are looking for is 'Link Aggregation' and it is only present on managed switches and even then only the little bit over budget range of those.

It shouldn't make a difference though, if you have a gigabit switch. If nothing else (except your router and PC)  is plugged into the switch, you should retain 100% (or close to 100%) of the speed.

 

So if you grab the cable from your router that now goes into your switch and plug it into your PC, what speeds do you get?

What else is plugged into the switch? What speeds do you have?

So far i have my PC connected and my Laptop , my laptop is just running it doesn't do anything i have the user manual opened on my laptop, Directly from the router my speed is 70mbbs, through switch is 50mbbs . The Switch has 24 ports all of the them are gigabit capable + 4 SFP/SFP+ ports (Zyxel GS1910-24).

 

And yes i have very high speed internet

[minibois]

3 minutes ago, BmxDmx said:

So far i have my PC connected and my Laptop , my laptop is just running it doesn't do anything i have the user manual opened on my laptop, Directly from the router my speed is 70mbbs, through switch is 50mbbs . The Switch has 24 ports all of the them are gigabit capable + 4 SFP/SFP+ ports (Zyxel GS1910-24).

 

And yes i have very high speed internet

Did you run a speedtest.net test to determine these speeds? Keep in mind those tests are difficult to accurately and precisely reproduce.

You might have connected to another server which has different speeds for example.

 

There is not really a simple easy way to test internal network speeds. So you could try running a couple tests back to back and plug the cable from switch to PC to see if the tests kinda line up. Of course keeping in mind reproducing the test accurately is impossible.

[Tristerin]

If its an unmanaged switch (and I know very little, but use unmanaged switches for this reason) is so that its literally just a passthrough.  If you have a managed switch you may need to set it up?

[BmxDmx]

Yeah , i'll do the Link Aggregation tomorrow , it doesn't look hard, just need to cut few short cables first and i'll try a more accurate test . The drop in speed might might have happened because someone in the house was using the internet(watching netflix, or YT) at the time . Any more recommendation?

[minibois]

1 minute ago, BmxDmx said:

Yeah , i'll do the Link Aggregation tomorrow , it doesn't seems hard, just need to cut few short cables first and i'll try a more accurate test . The drop in speed might might have happened because someone in the house was using the internet(watching netflix, or YT) at the time . Any more recommendation?

You can do a couple tests with different speedtest websites, like fast.com (Netflix servers) too.

[Video Beagle]

10 minutes ago, minibois said:

You might have connected to another server which has different speeds for example.

This especialy! Whenever there's a network change, the speed test changes it's target server. You need to manaually make sure you're always using the same target. (I learned this when testing two routers wifi once...an hour of results for nothing because it kept changing the target without me realizing).

 

Also make sure your cables are good, and up to the speeds. I had a bunch of old cables (like distant 15 year old ones) throughtout my home network that just weren't up to going gigabit when I switched that in house.

[BmxDmx]

1 minute ago, Video Beagle said:

This especialy! Whenever there's a network change, the speed test changes it's target server. You need to manaually make sure you're always using the same target. (I learned this when testing two routers wifi once...an hour of results for nothing because it kept changing the target without me realizing).

 

Also make sure your cables are good, and up to the speeds. I had a bunch of old cables (like distant 15 year old ones) throughtout my home network that just weren't up to going gigabit when I switched that in house.

All the cables are new, and all of them are  CAT6 , I made them myself.

 

[Video Beagle]

21 minutes ago, BmxDmx said:

All the cables are new, and all of them are  CAT6 , I made them myself.

Cool....I scored way low on my lab practical for making cables for my masters....couldn't keep the twist tight enough

[BmxDmx]

3 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

Cool....I scored way low on my lab practical for making cables for my masters....couldn't keep the twist tight enough

The only certification i have done is CISCO IT Essential , and some SoloLearn certification for Web Development  

[Windows7ge]

Link Aggregation does not scale when there's only 1 client using it. It only scales with multiple clients. With out configuring anything having 2 Ethernet cables between you and the router won't do anything either.

[beersykins]

3 hours ago, BmxDmx said:

I made them myself.

I'm glad you know how to do that, although more often than not being a beginner at cabling will result in a lot of cables that don't pass full specs or don't have enough SNR headroom due to crimping and tightness issues.  Not knocking it, it's a learning experience, manufactured cables are generally a lot more consistent.  If you have one laying around I'd use that to isolate any cabling termination type of variables.

[BmxDmx]

8 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

Link Aggregation does not scale when there's only 1 client using it. It only scales with multiple clients. With out configuring anything having 2 Ethernet cables between you and the router won't do anything either.

Yeah I know that , i don't need to scale my internet for one user , i need it to be as constant as possible for multiple users at the same time 

[mtz_federico]

How are you testing the speeds? iperf3 is the ideal way since it only tests your local speed

[Windows7ge]

4 hours ago, BmxDmx said:

Yeah I know that , i don't need to scale my internet for one user , i need it to be as constant as possible for multiple users at the same time 

If you have beyond 1Gbit Internet and the router support Link Aggregation then configuring it between the Router and the Switch will help saturate that bandwidth. Making it more reliable not so much. I actually can't recall at the moment if LA works as fail over if an interface in the LA group fails.

 

If you have lost 70% of your bandwidth by putting a switch in-between you and the router though there's definitely something else wrong here. The overhead of a switch is very much not that high.

[beersykins]

42 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I actually can't recall at the moment if LA works as fail over if an interface in the LA group fails.

Sure it does brah.  Depends on the LACP timers though.  Some switches only support the 30 second update window which you may have to wait for depending on what hashes pan out.

 

Otherwise you can add and remove LACP members and it will rebalance to the active interfaces.