Home network switch help

[McNasty 260]

Need some help fellas.  I've had enough with wireless to my Xbox one and want to hard wire it in.  I have a 100mb fiber connection from ATT but rarely get over 15-20mbps in my basement.  Router/modem is by the upstairs computer which is hard wired in and I don't want to change that it.

 

In a basement closet (closet A) that isn't finished I found the wire with a splitter box of some sort.  It's one cat5e cable going in and one going out.  Guess they didn't have a long enough cable when the basement was finished.

 

if I unplug one of the cables the internet dies in the house.  The fiber drop is in another basement closet (closet B) and I'm certain that the Ethernet cable coming out of it (1 fiber cable from the street goes into the top and 1 Ethernet cable comes out the bottom) is the one that I can unplug in closet A.  The other "switch" attached cable in closet A runs to a port in the room with the ATT modem/router.

 

can I buy one of those cheap 5 port gig switches from Best Buy to replace the the 1:1 "switch" in closet A and run a 2-4 cables to my Xbox/PS3/etc or will that not work because it hasn't hit the modem router yet?

 

hope this makes sense.  The simplest solution would be to run a cable from my router directly to the Xbox but I'd have to pay someone else to do it as I don't have the tools.  I can easily run a cable from that closet directly to the Xbox if a hub will work there and not screw up the internet.

 

 

 

 

[Sennex 1,903]

Post pictures please, your description is confusing.

 

Honestly though, a cheap 4-5 port switch should be fine, but you could also just get a Powerline adapter.

 

Here is my connection on my desktop using a powerline adapter:

 

Thats with my son streaming Hulu in his bedroom, and my wife in a Video conference right now.

 

I can link you the adapters I am using if you want

[Mikepjbell 354]

Why not use Powerline adaptors?

[GazzaGarratt 11,037]

Why not use Powerline adaptors?

Was gonna ask the same but also if we can widen the discussion, it would be good to know what types of Powerline are really good.

Main reason is I don't know if my TP-Link ones are doing the best job they can.

[Mikepjbell 354]

Powerline is dependent on the quality of your home wiring / power.

Generally though I have 5 around the house and they're all gigabit. They don't run as fast as a gigabit switch but really it's not necessary in a home environment...

[Sennex 1,903]

Mike is absolutely correct. Its why i stopped attic crawling to run lines and started buying them. We have 4 now.



Via the FG App

[McNasty 260]

Finally got this all figured out.

 

I tried Powerline adapters a few times before but it's been a while.  I don't know why, but the best I could get is 5 Mbps with Powerline.  My house was built in 2003 so it's not old, but it may be an issue with the fact that my basement was finished after the house was built and there may be different meters involved.  I dunno, but I tried again yesterday after seeing your post Bart and I got worse performance from powerline than I did wireless.  I have the TP 4010 adapters.

 

Today I figured out that I could take apart a floor AC vent in the room with the modem/router and I ran a cable myself between the floors and across 2 rooms and a foyer, just following the duct work.  Put together an 8 foot pvc conduit and got lucky that I was able to find the cable after removing the AC vent.  From there it was just a matter of connecting it up.  Needed about 60 feet of cable to make it happen.  Now I'm at 120 down and 100 up, which is a 10x improvement from what I was getting with wireless.

 

I did more research after my first post and realized that I couldn't use those initial wires I found because the xbox wouldn't have been able to receive an IP because those wires were before the modem.  Only solution was either powerline or run my own cable.  DIY FTW

[Sennex 1,903]

Crazy on the Adapters not working. Glad it got sorted out though, I hate having spotty connections.