Trying to set up home network

[2quik]

I am trying to set up my home network so that everyone can access to our movies on the server pc. I recently built a server/pc for this purpose. I am having trouble figuring out how to set up my router, switch and pc. I currently have a Actiontec Electronics GT784WN-01 Wireless N ADSL Modem Router runs fine and i purchased a TP-Link TL-SG1005D 5-Port Unmanaged Gigabit Desktop Switch. I currently installed cat6 wire to each location i want to have access to. I have 4 blu-ray players and one tv that i would like to network to my pc, but all have internet for netflex. I don't now to to connect them to each other.

Do i connect the router #1 port to the Switch #1 port, then which port do i connect the pc? does each cat6 cable need to be connected to just the switch?

Sorry if this seems like a no brainier but i am new to networking.
I am doing this for my kids so they can watch their movies in there rooms. so i would really, REALLY appreciate any help. I like drawn diagrams if possible.

 

[Guest]

Are they all on the same operating system? As long as all the computer are the same subnet, setup should be very easy. If all your computers are running Windows 7/8 you can either create a Homegroup or map a network drive and share files that way.

 

[hang-the-9]

The switch goes to one of the LAN ports of the router, you can hook up the devices to either the switch or the LAN ports of the router, either or both will work.

 

[2quik]

Thank you to both of you for replaying.

I currently have it set up with windows 7 home network through wifi with my Actiontec Electronics GT784WN-01 Wireless N ADSL Modem Router and of course its not the best way to stream movie to 4 TVs. So i decided to go with wiring my house with cat 6 cable.

My new build has the ASRock H77M LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI which has a gigabit lan port. From what i have read it seems people suggested i get a another PCI network card http:// for networking. So the extra PCI card will take the load of the Motherboard.

My desktop will use the ASRock H77M LGA 1155 Intel H77 gigabite lan port for internet purpose.
Can i connect the switch to the Intel desktop adapter PCI card will that provide internet and networking to all 4 tvs or does the switch have to be plugged into the router?

Thank you for your help.

 

[2quik]

I have search all around and i can't seem to find a good answer. Again i apologize for little knowledge of networking but i would really be grateful if someone can help me out. I have attached to diagrams which i think will work but i am not sure so if someone can point me to the correct way of connecting everything it would be awesome. Again i want to be able to access movies of my server/pc through windows home group network and also have internet access with all devices (TV's).

Setup A http://

Setup B http://

Thank you.

 

[Guest]

If you have an active connection, you can map a network drive:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/create-a-shortcut-to-map-a-network-drive

 

[2quik]

Thank you David for the response. Although it doesn't answer my question on how exactly i need to set up my router to my switch to my Pc.

i am lost on how to set up the equipment. I have attached 2 images that i think it is suppose to be set up but i am not sure.

 

[hang-the-9]

Thank you to both of you for replaying.

I currently have it set up with windows 7 home network through wifi with my Actiontec Electronics GT784WN-01 Wireless N ADSL Modem Router and of course its not the best way to stream movie to 4 TVs. So i decided to go with wiring my house with cat 6 cable.

My new build has the ASRock H77M LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI which has a gigabit lan port. From what i have read it seems people suggested i get a another PCI network card http:// for networking. So the extra PCI card will take the load of the Motherboard.

My desktop will use the ASRock H77M LGA 1155 Intel H77 gigabite lan port for internet purpose.
Can i connect the switch to the Intel desktop adapter PCI card will that provide internet and networking to all 4 tvs or does the switch have to be plugged into the router?

Thank you for your help.

I have search all around and i can't seem to find a good answer. Again i apologize for little knowledge of networking but i would really be grateful if someone can help me out. I have attached to diagrams which i think will work but i am not sure so if someone can point me to the correct way of connecting everything it would be awesome. Again i want to be able to access movies of my server/pc through windows home group network and also have internet access with all devices (TV's).

Setup A http://

Setup B http://

Thank you.

You don't need a second card for networking, the onboard one is fine. The processing it takes to run it is pretty much negligible. The connections will be Modem > Router > Switch, all the network devices will be connected to the router and/or switch depending on how many ports you need to use.

 

[2quik]

Thank you han-the-9 for your response.

I already purchased the second PCI network card, so i would like to put it to use. I have already installed and it's ready. I understand that you connect the router--> switch--> PC. What i don't understand is how to connect the three together. If i use the connections on setup A will the tv's have internet access or would setup B, which of these setups will get internet and connect to my home network? please someone..anyone?

 

[hang-the-9]

Thank you han-the-9 for your response.

I already purchased the second PCI network card, so i would like to put it to use. I have already installed and it's ready. I understand that you connect the router--> switch--> PC. What i don't understand is how to connect the three together. If i use the connections on setup A will the tv's have internet access or would setup B, which of these setups will get internet and connect to my home network? please someone..anyone?

I already answered, your devices all get connected to the router and/or the switch. I looked at your connections pictures and for some reason you have the PC connected twice, just use one of the network cards, not both.

Switch gets connected to the Router, then devices get connected to either one of those. The router provides the IP addresses to the devices, and the switch just acts as extra ports to the router. Your second picture won't work as the switch is not connected to the router.

 

[2quik]

so if i use setup B the Tv's will only have access to the Windows 7 home network and no internet access?

I was told that i needed a second network card to take the load off the mob. was this incorrect? if so why would people use two network cards for then?

 

[hang-the-9]

so if i use setup B the Tv's will only have access to the Windows 7 home network and no internet access?

I was told that i needed a second network card to take the load off the mob. was this incorrect? if so why would people use two network cards for then?

No, the TVs will have no network access because there is nothing assigning IP addresses to them on the network unless you turn on Internet Connection Sharing on the computer, which will just add more hassle and it totally unneeded. Electronically they will be connected, but it won't do you any good because they won't have any proper TCP/IP setup to do anything. A bit like a battery with nothing using it. Yea it has electricity, but what good is it unless it's plugged into a device?

Don't know who told you you needed a second network card but they are mistaken, while it makes a teeny tiny bit of difference (about as much as removing a can of soda from you car will improve your gas millage) it's a waste of money and setup time. People rarely use dual networks cards, those that do are usually on servers for fail over and multi-homing when you want one computer to be on two different networks.

In the old days when computes were slow and onboard network cards were not as advanced and chipset did not have a lot of logic in them, yes a network card with it's own processing was a good idea for optimizing your system. But that has not been true for at least 10 years.

 

[2quik]

ok maybe that was what the person that told me to use two network cards was talking about. He never mentioned Internet Connection Sharing.

Here is the posting that talks about dual network cards.

If you want internet on that media PC, it would be best to get a dual Ethernet card (or use a single Ethernet card and the port on the motherboard), and use one port for internet (or put in a wireless card, and get internet on that PC from your network that way) and the other for streaming content to each room.

 

[2quik]

if i use just the lan port on the mob for all 4 tv's to stream and internet connection will have issues if everyone is watch a different movie at the same time or two tv's are playing movies and the other two are using internet?

 

[hang-the-9]

if i use just the lan port on the mob for all 4 tv's to stream and internet connection will have issues if everyone is watch a different movie at the same time or two tv's are playing movies and the other two are using internet?

By streaming from the computer, you are talking about movies stored on the computer in DIVX or VOB format or something correct? If you use the computer to stream to several TVs at once, it's not just the network card that will have issues, the whole system will slow down. It will be slower for sure, but that is not the fact that you have it running off the single card, it's also all the traffic in the router and switch and the load on the CPU and hard-drive on the computer.

If you plan on doing a lot of watching of movies stored on a hard-drive, get a stand-alone network media player, something like this http://www.amazon.com/Micca-EP350-G2-Network-HD-Audio/dp/B004GIZ61K/ref=sr_1_8?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1363276995&sr=1-8&keywords=network+media+players but you need to make sure your TVs can even play and find network stored files and what formats. Then you don't have to worry about leaving the computer on all the time, nor about managing storage on it. Although I have used my computer to play movies to 2 devices before without issues, as long as the computer is not doing something like trying to play games at high settings.

 

[2quik]

I doubt all tv's will be playing movies at the same time or internet. I basally just wanted something that i can use to stream movies for the kids and be able to be on the pc surfing net at the same time. The media files are .mp4 and .avi which my tv's play just fine. I don't believe the tv's are "transcoding" anything, i think the pc will be sending raw files, is this correct?

I looked into a Network Digital Media Player as well, but i need an new computer and thought i could build a media server\PC.

my new current build spec's.
Intel Core i5-3570K
ASRock H77M LGA 1155 Intel H77
EVGA 01G-P3-1302-LR GeForce 8400
XFX ProSeries P1-450S-X2B9 450W
2 X Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200RPM
Patriot Viper 3 16GB 2X8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600

and the extra Intel PWLA8391GT PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI 1 x RJ45.

 

[2quik]

Would bridging the two network cards allow for setup B to work?

 

[bill001g]

You are making it overly complex and that alone will cause you major difficulties.

I suspect your problem is you need 1 more port on your switch. If your router had gig ports then it all would not matter....and it mostly does not matter anyway.

So the optimum design is going to be take 3 tv and your PC and plug it into the switch. You then plug the last port on the switch into the router. This allows your TVs and PC to talk to each other at gig speed and have access to the intenet at 100m which is the limit on the router.

You only option for the last tv is to plug it into the router. That tv will have access to the internet but be limited to 100m.

This is so silly to even worry about. 100m is huge. You could likely stream video to every tv at the same time and be nowhere near 100m even using 1080p feeds. In this configuration you can feed 300m to each of the 3 tv and another 100m to the last one.

You will run out of processor power and memory well before you come even close to that limit. I doubt the machine we be able to produce much over 300-400m total and be running at 100% cpu.

An added thought....can your TV even run at gig speed or do they have 100m ports. I doubt any tv could take anywhere near 100m even if it has gig ports.

 

[2quik]

I was trying to see if i can use the other pci network switch since i already bought it and learn. But i will take your guys advice and not use it. I will connect my network you suggested bill001g and will post back and see how it goes.

Thank you so much to both of you.

 

[stelellico]

I am trying to set up my home network so that everyone can access to our movies on the server pc. I recently built a server/pc for this purpose. I am having trouble figuring out how to set up my router, switch and pc. I currently have a Actiontec Electronics GT784WN-01 Wireless N ADSL Modem Router runs fine and i purchased a TP-Link TL-SG1005D 5-Port Unmanaged Gigabit Desktop Switch. I currently installed cat6 wire to each location i want to have access to. I have 4 blu-ray players and one tv that i would like to network to my pc, but all have internet for netflex. I don't now to to connect them to each other.

Do i connect the router #1 port to the Switch #1 port, then which port do i connect the pc? does each cat6 cable need to be connected to just the switch?

Sorry if this seems like a no brainier but i am new to networking.
I am doing this for my kids so they can watch their movies in there rooms. so i would really, REALLY appreciate any help. I like drawn diagrams if possible.

Once you connect the router port 1 to the switch port 1 you can connect pcs to the router or to the switch, it does not matter, as long as all the devices are on the same network. Try to look at the Network Table inside your router to see which devices are connected to the network and which are not.