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Upgrading to Gigabit?

G

Gronnie

Occasional Visitor
Hi, I have a question about upgrading my network to Gigabit. This is in a two bedroom apartment that is about 850 square feet. Right now my network consists of a Charter 25 down, 3 up plan using a Motorola SB6120 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 eXtreme Broadband Cable Modem. That is connected to the new Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router - Premium Edition (WNDR3800).

All cabling is Cat 6 from Monoprice. Connected by wire are:

1. My computer, upgraded to this power supply and graphics card. Connect via DVI are two Acer 235Hbmid 23" 1920x1080 monitors.
2. Wife's computer. Connected via VGA is a SAMSUNG 220WM 22" 1680x1050 monitor.
3. 20 foot cable to bedroom where I am using a Linksy WRT54G configured as a wired only switch. Connected to the switch are:
a. Roku XDS
b. Insignia™ - Connected TV 32" Class / 1080p / 120Hz / LED HDTV .
4. 50 foot cable to living room where I am using a Netgear WNR1000v2 as a wired only switch. Connected to the switch are:
a. Panasonic VIERA TC-P50G25 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV
b. Panasonic DMP-BD85K WiFi Enabled Blu-Ray Disc Player

Connected via wireless I have a Verizon Droid Bionic, Samsung Galaxy S2, and me and the wife's laptops (all wireless N.)

Connected via Readyshare are:
1. HP Deskjet F2430 printer
2. Buffalo 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

Is upgrading the two desktop pc's to gigabit as simple as getting gigabit ethernet cards and installing them? How do I choose the right one? Looks like my desktop has one open PCI Express slot and one open PCI slot (the PCIe16 slot is taken by the graphics card.) Wife's desktop only seems to have an open PCIe16 slot and I can't find any affordable NIC's for PCIe16. Maybe will have to just not upgrade hers? She only uses it to surf the web and to make documents in office anyway...

Is it better to go use PCI or PCIe for the card? Here are the cards I'm kind of looking at:
1. Intel PCI card $31.99
2. Intel PCIe card $29.99

Will there be any benefit to changing the routers that are setup as switches out for gigabit switches if the devices are only 10/100 and not gigabit? How can I tell if the devices are gigabit capable and/or is there any way to make them gigabit capable if they aren't already?

Also, since I am fairly new to networking any suggestions on how to improve my network? I think it is done correctly as I am not having any problems, but you can never be too sure when you are fairly new at something.

Sorry for the post being so long, I wanted to make sure to provide any information that could possibly be needed. Thanks in advance, this forum has been a great help in my learning process.
 
Last edited:
Mixed network speeds shouldn't be a problem, cheap no-name switches will slow mixed traffic down traffic because of time slicing, but even then it shouldn't be noticeable.

You can put an PCIe x4 card in a x16 slot to upgrade your wife's machine.

The Intel cards are considered the gold standard, stick with them it is worth a few more bucks. Cheap NIC cards offload some of the work to the CPU, the Intel cards don't. I recommend the Pro card you point to, it is more future proof than the non-pro intel cards.

PCIe is full duplex, PCI is half, and instead of shared communication channel of PCI, each lane is dedicated to the slot. In other words, PCIe is dramatically faster, especially on a loaded machine. When you can go PCIe.

A Dedicated Green Gigabit switch will probably save you a few pennies on power, and can offer better performance than a cheap or older router. Take a look at the D-Link or Netgears, they're cheap ($20 some bucks).
 
Last edited:
Gronnie said:
Is upgrading the two desktop pc's to gigabit as simple as getting gigabit ethernet cards and installing them? How do I choose the right one? Looks like my desktop has one open PCI Express slot and one open PCI slot (the PCIe16 slot is taken by the graphics card.) Wife's desktop only seems to have an open PCIe16 slot and I can't find any affordable NIC's for PCIe16. Maybe will have to just not upgrade hers? She only uses it to surf the web and to make documents in office anyway...

Is it better to go use PCI or PCIe for the card? Here are the cards I'm kind of looking at:
1. Intel PCI card $31.99
2. Intel PCIe card $29.99
Click to expand...

Yes it should be just a matter of adding gigabit ethernet cards. As for choosing the right one... First I should let you know that if at all possible try to use PCIe as it almost always allows for better performance versus PCI. Second know that PCIe x1, x4, and x8 cards can be used in PCIe x16 slots. So based on the information you provided you should be able to use the Intel PCIe cards in both desktops. But if you don't need the highest possible performance you could use the Intel PCI card in your computer but I recommend you try using ebay to buy it. I have bought a few Intel PRO/1000 MT PCI cards for $10-$12 from ebay with free shipping and all of them have worked well.

Gronnie said:
Will there be any benefit to changing the routers that are setup as switches out for gigabit switches if the devices are only 10/100 and not gigabit? How can I tell if the devices are gigabit capable and/or is there any way to make them gigabit capable if they aren't already?
Click to expand...

Generally I would say no. To my knowledge most TVs, Blu-Ray players, and other media streaming devices are limited to 100 Mbps ethernet which cannot be upgraded to gigabit. This shouldn't be a problem though as even a high quality Blu-Ray movie only needs a maximum bandwidth of 40-60 Mbps. Which means a single 100 Mbps Ethernet connection can probably support streaming of at least 2 Blu-Ray movies at the same time without issue. If your interested I can explain a few situations where a gigabit switch might make a difference but in your current setup I don't thing your 10/100 routers are limiting you.

Gronnie said:
Also, since I am fairly new to networking any suggestions on how to improve my network? I think it is done correctly as I am not having any problems, but you can never be too sure when you are fairly new at something.
Click to expand...

So far I would say your network looks fine for your current setup. I have to ask though, why are you looking at moving to gigabit? Generally gigabit is only necessary when you are transferring a lot of data (1GB+) between computers and you need (or want) faster transfer speeds. Wondering if that is the case for you?

00Roush
 
00Roush said:
I have to ask though, why are you looking at moving to gigabit? Generally gigabit is only necessary when you are transferring a lot of data (1GB+) between computers and you need (or want) faster transfer speeds. Wondering if that is the case for you?
Click to expand...

Suspect its the new router....
 
Last edited:
00Roush said:
So far I would say your network looks fine for your current setup. I have to ask though, why are you looking at moving to gigabit? Generally gigabit is only necessary when you are transferring a lot of data (1GB+) between computers and you need (or want) faster transfer speeds. Wondering if that is the case for you?

00Roush
Click to expand...

I plan to start ripping my media and stream it over my network instead of using discs.
 
I'm having trouble locating a PCIe X4 card. Just finding X1's (I think.) Any links would be appreciated. Unless ya'll think an X1 will be fine? The PCIe card I linked to doesn't say, so I assume that means it is an X1?
 
Gronnie said:
I'm having trouble locating a PCIe X4 card. Just finding X1's (I think.) Any links would be appreciated. Unless ya'll think an X1 will be fine? The PCIe card I linked to doesn't say, so I assume that means it is an X1?
Click to expand...

Yep, my mistake, it is an x1, and is what I use without an issue. The dual port is x4.
 
Last edited:
Gronnie said:
But this too. I have upgrade fever.
Click to expand...

GregN said:
Welcome to the club.

Next thing you know you'll be in the market for 10TB NAS...
Click to expand...

LOL. I hear that... Ever since I went gigabit I have spent countless hours tweaking my computers to get the best possible network performance. Then I would end up buying more hardware to see if I could do any better. :D Thankfully I have hit the limit for gigabit and the cost to goto the next performance tier is quite high.

00Roush
 
I think I'm going to go ahead and buy two of the PCIe cards I posted from newegg unless anyone thinks I should do something different.
 
Installed the NICs last night. Was able to transfer a music folder that took my old setup 28 minutes in <7 minutes.... great upgrade!!!
 
Upgrade fever is still alive and well. Replaced my Dell D630 with a new HP laptop running Windows 7 so that all my computers would have 7 on them.

Last night I also did my first ever computer build. I built a HTPC and it actually works!
 
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