XT

what are the differences? One of my mate's installed a 2mb cable line in his house and Telewest gave him a 'switch', is it the same thing as a router?

Mr.Cookie

a switch is basicall a hub but it know where each pc is connected to it so only sends info to the require pc rather than all of them like a hub.

a router can be a switch or a hub (switched one better) but has an uplink connection to conect to a dsl modem or cable modem.

All as far as i understand

Si

mr-white

basically.....

a router interconnects networks that use the same routing protocols e.g i.p from tcp/ip. for instance if you have a network at home with 6 machines you can use a router and configure it to connect all the machines on the network to connect to your isp. i.e get online

a switch connects computers together on a local area network (LAN) so that they can communicate. the diff between a switch and a hub is that a switch is an "intelligent hub". when you connect a network together with a hub and the computers communicate the hub sends packets all over the network and the computer that requires it takes them. a switch on the other hand knows where the packets are going and sends directly to the reciever which consequently saves on data being send accross the network.

with out going into too much detail the diff between switches and routers are they work on different layers on the OSI model.

MW

XT

Thanks for making this clear


So, can I connect the switch to the cable modem and then all 4 PCs to the switch?

mr-white

no with a switch you'll have to connect the modem to a computer and then the computer to the switch so it will act as a server. you'll need 2 network cards in the server one in and one out.

with a router you connect the modem to the router and then the computers to the router if it has enough ports or you can plug a switch into the router and plug your computers into the switch

MW

XT

Thanks people