I currently have an adsl router and there is not enough ethernet ports on the back we need to add more computers on to this what should you use to connect the other pcs to the router ?

A hub , switch or another router?

bearing in mind that more that 1 pc will b e used at the one time!

A hub, plug one of the hubs ports into one of your routers ports

ps. a hub and a switch are the same thing.

Edited August 16, 200817 yr by breff

I have a 8 port network switch from Netgear

lads thats great,

i will go and try a hub later on today

ps. a hub and a switch are the same thing.

Actually, they're not, but in this simple scenario it won't make any difference.

Most devices sold these days will be switches anyway, even the cheapest 4 or 5-port devices.

In general you'll probably only find a hub in older kit.

Just plug and play.

A hub, plug one of the hubs ports into one of your routers ports

ps. a hub and a switch are the same thing.

Switches transfer data quicker than hubs as the traffic is directed rather than just on all ports

agreed, hubs are a bit old these days, are they still used?

Most swithes now auto uplink so you wont need a crossover between them, but as said just connect a swicth to your router. But might be an idea to connect all your machines on the new switch and then use a single cable to the hub. Else all traffic will have to go between switch on the router and your new switch.

Hubs puch the recieved data out to all connected devices, and the device the data is intended to be for accepts it. This puts unneccessary traffic onto all network cabling. I have not seen a hub for years.

Switches 'learn' which computers are where and direct the traffic only to the required machine.

When connected a switch to a router, get a switch with the capacity of all machines, and then uplink from the router to the switch, leaving the other router ports empty. This ensures internal network traffic does not have to rely on a single network cable at any point which creates a bottle neck. The only bottle neck will then be the cable from the switch to the router which is only going to be taking internet traffic (and a tiny bit of config traffic). This makes no odds, as you are limited by the broadband connection anyway.

I seem to remember having to use a crossover cable to link switches?

Is that still the case?

Most switches have auto sense ports to detect uplink or will have a dedicated uplink port, so no need for x-over cable.

Edited August 17, 200817 yr by DaleR