Setup tips for 48port managed switch and Google fiber box

Rawhead

Honorable
Dec 14, 2012
2
0
10,510
Can anyone give me some setup tips?

The setup

  • home is wired with Cat6 cable
    Google fiber box w/ Wifi
    TP-Link L2 managed switch T2600G-52TS (48 port gigabit)
    Asus RT-AC66U router set up in AP mode with a separate SSID
    this is connected through one of the home's CAT6 connections, back to the TP-Link switch
    Small 8 port unmanaged Dlink gigabit switch
    this is also connected back to the TP-Link through the home's CAT6
The short version is I can't seem to connect to the switch's UI by IP address, and even if I did, I wouldn't know what settings to change.

I'm not necessarily looking to do anything fancy, but I'd like a nice, fast, efficient connection for all my devices.

The background (longer story):
I have roughly 48 CAT6 connections throughout the house. I'm not using all of these at once, but I thought while I was installing cable, why not overkill instead of underkill.
For a few years, I've just used an unmanaged TP-Link 24port TL-SG1024 gigabit switch, and swapped patch cords around at the rack when I needed to use different connections throughout the house.

This worked well, and everything was fast, but eventually I wanted to be able to make all outlets live, and do away with the swapping. So I installed a second TP-Link 24port TL-SG1024, and patched in all outlets.

Unfortunately, even though the number of end devices and download traffic remained the same, the entire network became slower. It wasn't very noticable on downloads, because Google fiber is very fast and has some room to spare, but it really showed while gaming with voice chat. I've 100% verified that the switch was causing it. During a session, I tested several things, but the most definitive was listening to voice chat with and without the second switch connected (with no devices connected to it). The second switch alone was enough to cause distortion and slowdown in the voice chat.

So that is what brought me to the 48 port switch idea. My hope was that by ditching the dual 24 port switches, and having all ports on one switch, it would elimnate the slowdown. And since i was already having to shell out considerable money for a 48 port, I thought I might as well pay a bit extra and make it a managed switch while I was at it.

I'm not sure if that was the right choice or not. I'm hoping you all can tell me.

I'd also be very grateful for any tips you can provide to:

  • Get into the TP-Link interface
    How to best configure it
If it matters, we do lots of gaming, voice chat, Netflix, etc.

Thanks for any help/advice you can offer.
 
Solution
I don't know but sometimes commercial grade switches...especially ones that have console ports you must do the initial configuration via a console cable. I have never seen USB console cables but it would likely be simpler since few pc have serial ports anymore that most console cable require.

Now many switches you can configure via ip address. Unlike a router most switches do not do DHCP so you must set all the parameters in your PC manually. You must also not have the switch connected to a network. At that point you should be able to key in the IP address the switch uses by default in your browser. Older switches you had to telnet or ssh into. In most cases you must then change the IP address so it will not conflict with...
Sheldon Cooper: Great Power comes Great Responsibilities, and so Managed Switch = lots of configurations, I wouldn't able to tell you where to start, am hoping there is a plug&play or dumb mode on this 48 ports, until you figure out what features you need enabling.

Am surprised adding a switch alone slow things down for you, as long as there wasn't a heavy load on the second switch, and then you did a TREE right?

Router/FW -----> SW1.
Router/FW -----> SW2.

and not:

Router/FW -----> SW1 -----> SW2.

and you segregated pieces that need to talk to each other often like, Security Server and Cameras on the same switch right, as to minimize cross-switch traffic?

A good thing to have is QOS no matter how much bandwidth you got, to me it just imposes civility and control in an otherwise chaotic, every man for himself LAN/Internet.
 
I don't know but sometimes commercial grade switches...especially ones that have console ports you must do the initial configuration via a console cable. I have never seen USB console cables but it would likely be simpler since few pc have serial ports anymore that most console cable require.

Now many switches you can configure via ip address. Unlike a router most switches do not do DHCP so you must set all the parameters in your PC manually. You must also not have the switch connected to a network. At that point you should be able to key in the IP address the switch uses by default in your browser. Older switches you had to telnet or ssh into. In most cases you must then change the IP address so it will not conflict with your network.

Running multiple switches should not have caused any issues...other than all the device behind 1 switch would have to share the 1gbit connection to the other switch.

What may have happened is you had a IP address conflict. It is not uncommon for the switches to use the same default IP as your router. If you do not change the IP end devices will sometime get the switch mac response to arp for the gateway IP. This is only a guess. Large corporations run huge numbers of switches hooked together in many ways with no issues so running 2 24 port switches should have been fine.

On settings the default on many switches is all ports are on a single vlan with no restrictions. This is your best option to start.
 
Solution
I'd be careful with running services on a managed switch. most people don't have 1G internet so they aren't designed to run services and hit those speeds.
basic nat and unmanaged switch is going to be fast. so if there aren't specific services you want on top of that then it's not needed.
WAN services can be run off your router. buying an x86 pc to run pfsense or ipfire can handle 1G speeds and run many services. this has the best performance you can get for around $250-600. plus you can run these in vms and run nas or w/e off it as well. a consumer router maxes cpu @ around 150Mbs with QoS. high end x86 uses about 2% cpu with 20Gbit. ipfire has great qos for gaming, not that you need any with gfiber.