Quick LAN question about whether a switch is necessary.

B

BMWlover

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 13, 2006
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I am going to host a LAN party soon and am new to the networking scene. I have a Linksys
WRT54GS wireless router which also has four ethernet ports on the back. The LAN would be small, myself and three friends at most, so I am not in need of a switch. Can I just hook up a the computers to the WRT54GS and not use a switch with a crossover cable? I have used the SEARCH FORUM tool and that has gotten me some answers about setting up a network, but am still unclear about actually setting it up the connections. Thanks a lot.
 
The 4 ports on your router is a built-in switch.

So if it's only going to be you and 3 friends, then you'll be fine.
 
Of course if you ever expand beyond those three friends, or they bring a friend, you're shit out of luck without another switch uplinked to the Linksys. Reason I add this is because LAN parties can expand without warning. I know this from experience. Just food for thought.
 
Yeah, I may buy a cheap linksys switch. With Linksys can I use a straight ethernet cable to uplink to the switch or do I still need to use a crossover cable? Thanks, I know with some systems you do not need a crossover so wondering about with linksys.
 
Well if you purchase a swtich that has an "uplink" port then no, you don't need a crossover cable. Otherwise you will need a crossover to get data flowing from your router to the second switch.
 
Or if you play it smart and have auto-MDI/X hardware, you never have to worry about crossover, ever. ;) I think anyways, it always seems to work for me.

But yeah, LANs grow without warning and exponentially...you may end up with like, 16 people or more ;)
 
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