Plugging 100mbit switch into gigabit switch effects?

[mpeg4v3]

I've currently got a router setup with a 10/100 card as the external NIC, and an Intel 10/100/1000 card as the internal NIC, and am running a pure Gigabit network (through a Dell Powerconnect 2608). Yes, I know, without jumbo frames the performance won't be nearly as good, but I got all of the hardware cheap, so isn't a big deal, and I do do very large file transfers regularly between my file server and desktop.

I've also got a Linksys WRT54g right now that I want to setup as a WAP/switch, ignore it's routing capabilities. If I were to plug the WRT54g into my gigabit switch, and have my Xbox and wireless laptop running off of it, would it adversely effect the gigabit network? I know in wireless networking, having an 802.11b card hooked up to an 802.11b/g network will force all clients down to 802.11b- will the same happen here? Will my gigabit clients be forced down to 100mbit, or will they still run at gigabit speeds to each other, just not to the 100mbit clients?

 

[BollWeevil]

mpeg4v3, it shouldn't affect gigabit-to-gigabit traffic, only traffic going between the router and the gigabit clients won't be at gigabit speeds. Think in terms of 10/100 switches. Plugging in one 10 Mbit client isn't going to force the whole 10/100 network to 10 Mbit, only that port.

And your statement about mixing 802.11g and 802.11b clients isn't necessarily true. 802.11g clients connected to a 802.11g access point with 802.11b clients also present may experience some degredation, but the typically the whole network doesn't slow down to 802.11b speeds. mixing b and g client

 

[mpeg4v3]

Thanks for the reply, and for that link. I always thought that wifi's speeds was based on the slowest link in the chain, thanks for correcting my assumptions!

 

[BollWeevil]

Well, apparently mixing 802.11b/g was an issue with a previous version of WRT54G firmware, but I think it has been corrected since so one .11b client doesn't slow down the network.