I've currently got my empeg setup at work with Mlord's kick arse dock. I've got one lit RJ45 jack at my desk, and it's going into the uplink of a crappy 10baseT hub that i dug out of the trash somewhere, then splits off to my computer and my empeg. Our network is 100baseT and with the hub plugged in between my computer and the jack i get VERY noticable slowdowns when doing syncs with our source control server and email, as well as collision lights on the hub.

So the question is, do i need to get a 10/100 hub or a switch?? I would ask the IT guys, but I'm doing this stealth like because i'm 100% certain that if i ask IT, they won't want this "foreign object" on the network at all.

After the question is answered... does anyone have the hub/switch in question laying around that they wouldn't mind getting rid of? I can't bring myself to pay the $50 retail for a speed bump.

*smacks forehead*

should have done a search. i dug up this thread. so it looks like i'll need a dual speed swtich. everyone concur?

so does anyone have a Netgear switch laying around they aren't using? =]

If you've only got two (different speed) things plugged into it, then a 10/100 hub is plenty.

so does anyone have a Netgear switch laying around they aren't using?

As it turns out, I do. Sending it to you might be cost-prohibitive, however .

If you've only got two (different speed) things plugged into it, then a 10/100 hub is plenty.

But wouldn't a switch prevent all the collisions i'm seeing and speed things up a bit? I don't want the network guys seeing a bunch of packets being repeated everywhere either...

As it turns out, I do. Sending it to you might be cost-prohibitive, however

figures. =] I don't plan on being in the UK in the next week either. damn.

But wouldn't a switch prevent all the collisions i'm seeing and speed things up a bit?

Yup. Just replace that cheap 10baseT hub with cheap 10/100 switch. A quick trip to Fry's should land you one for next to nothing.

And if for some reason the empeg doesn't like being plugged into the switch (sometimes that happens), just plug the empeg into the 10baseT hub and plug the hub into the switch.

When I spec'd the wiring for our current building, I made sure that our users wouldn't have these sorts of problems, by making sure everyone had at least two lit RJ45 jacks at each workstation going back to the main patch panel. For the few who needed more, I supplied the hardware to go in their cube.

Dunno whether anyone appreciates how nice it is to have two jacks instead of one at each cubicle. Ah well, I appreciate not having to worry about supporting hubs in each cubicle.

Funny thing is we DO have two lit jacks at each cube... but the cube next to mine was sort of makeshift and his line is coming from my port. I'm way too tempted to just unplug his jack and see how long it takes him to scream.

But wouldn't a switch prevent all the collisions i'm seeing and speed things up a bit?

Not really when you've only got two devices and one of them is 10BaseT-only. That being said, my guess is that a switch is going to cost you about 5% more than a hub (maybe even less), so you might as well go the switch route in case you ever want to plug something else up.

Funny thing is we DO have two lit jacks at each cube... but the cube next to mine was sort of makeshift and his line is coming from my port.

Better yet. Put the hub and the empeg on the jack he's using.

He's stealing your second port, he's got no place to complain when it drops to 10mbps. He might not even notice.

He might not even notice

hmmm... that's tempting.... lol

Hey, I was serious. It's a zero-cost, zero-manhours solution.

I just don't want the network doods poking around if he does complain. =] I'm one of those guys you admins hate... hahah. I'm trying to HIDE this rememba?

Well, I just know if I were your admin, I wouldn't care. I even have a solution that could let both you and your neighbor work at 100mbps without any hubs or switches in your cubes. (Splitter jacks, one in your cube, one at the patch panel, only requirement is an additional free port on the main switch.)

Nearly all of the slowdown you see is because of the 10mb/s rate.

Any 10/100 dual speed hub (or swtich) will make it all nice and speedy again.

I'd sell you one of my spares cheap, but the postage would probably exceed what you can pick one up locally for.

Cheers

I'm one of those guys you admins hate...

Same here at work for the networking team. Then again, they deserved the unfriendly jabs after I spent a day tracking down a problem on our lab network, to find the problem was on their end. Basicially the network was flooded with traffic. A packet dump showed a ton of DHCP traffic from the lab DHCP server. So we powered it down. The traffic was still out there. So we began looking for a double crossover issue, when there was none on the hubs/switches we run. So finally the IM guy goes into the networking closet and pulls the crossover cable out. The other network guy plugged it in between 2 switches connected to a shared backplane, and due to their config, they kept repeating a few packets again and again as fast as they could spit them through the crossover.

Morrons...

Oh, that's rich.

At least I've got the people in my department well-trained not to mess with the wiring in the closets.

I did a search here on "collision" and came up with this thread... I'm currently getting yellow collision warnings with the following setup:



The collision is happening with the empeg during a sync and possibly during other empeg operations, I havn't checked. It appears to collide with the connection between the 8-port switch and the router. I'm guessing that's where it's colliding with because the router is where my PC is connected and that light, albiet green, is flashing in sync with the yellow collision light.

Do you guys have any idea? Perhaps putting the PC and the empeg on the same switch? I wanted the PC to be as close to the modem for obvious reason but maybe I can do it another way..

Newegg has the D-Link DSS-5+ for 22.99 and a 10.00 mail in rebate. That's a 5 port switch for 12.99 plus shipping.

Isn't the empeg 10/half? You're always going to have some collisions, even on a switch port. Because of TCP transmit and receive windows some number of sequential packets are going to be sent in advance of the corresponding ACK packets.

--Nathan