Hub or Switch Question

[BigMikeRich]

I have dsl router going to a dell gigabit switch and in one room I have a hub (because I ran out of jacks) and the everything in that room has a ton of problems.

If I get another switch to replace the hub, will it hand out IP's (i am running DHCP through the router) or will the router be able to manage both switches?

Are the dell switches any good? They have an 8 port for $54.

 

[kawasaki747]

Sounds like you may be getting some collisions on your hub, going to a switch may more than likely resolve your problems, but I would look to see whats causeing the problem to begin with. Disconnect one machine at a time and check to see if your problems persist. It may be one machine broadcasting traffic that's killing the whole segment.

Hubs broadcast traffic to every device that they are connected to, switches only broadcast to the machine that is intended to recieve said info.

I have simplified this greatly, but I would never, ever, never again use a hub after moving to a switched network.

Just my 1/2 cent on this.

Nick

 

[squishy]

I'm confused as to which room is having issues.

A switch is *always* better, it's not even close. I won't get into the details as the above description is accurate.

If you're having issues, the clients (the machines attached to the switch or hub) may have negotiation issues (ie: can't negotiate 10 or 100 at half or full duplex) granted most machines nowadays don't have that problem.

Both the switch and a hub will forward DHCP broadcast packets, you don't need to worry about that.

As I've said a long time ago, put all your machines on a switch and throw away the hub, they're cheap enough. Unless they're in Marketing, then definitely put them on a hub. There's a reason I have the expression "marketing hub".