Simple home networking question

[filmstar]

I have just built a house and to future proof it I have installed 3 Ethernet ports using cat 5e cables to every room. The house has 7 rooms, therefore I have a total of 21 cat 5e cables that all run to a central (av) room.

I have been told to terminate these 21 cables in a patch panel. I then need a suitable gigabyte switch, which connects the patch panel to my virgin hub/router? If this is correct, do I need a switch or switches with the same number of ports that equal the cables into the patch panel?

 

[Saga Lout]

Three eight port switches should do the trick, assuming your hub has three spare ports to receive the leads from the switches. Could not some of the rooms make use of wireless? Unless you have PCs in every room, it's unlikely every connection will wish to be tethered by an ethernet cable

 

[filmstar]

thanks for your response

 

[Beachnative]

I would buy one 24 port dumb switch like THIS ONE for $200 new or 1/2 that for used.....My personal preference is NEW ONLY.
By stacking smaller 8 port switches you could have Bridge timeout errors and scratch your head why you have to reboot these 3 device every once in a while...Buy one switch...and only one switch with enough ports for all of your lines.

You are wiring your house correctly always plan for the future....It will have added value over any other home on the market if you sell.

In case you have money buring a hole in your pocket, Leviton makes a whole house set up for what you are doing and have it all nicely laid out in one electrical panel....I know I set up a few dozen homes with 78 wire drops and it looked awesome once done. The Leviton solution come out to be around $1500 for parts.

Can you do it cheaper? Yes and get better products but the Leviton stuff gives a clean contemporary well planned out look. In terms of resale plan it out cleanly and don't just throw it together.
Clean sells, crappy work smells!!!

 

[filmstar]

excellent, its likely that i wont need every port active at any one time but if i've made provision for them i may as well have them tethered up.

In 4 of the rooms i'm going to have the t.v's linked up to a matrix
http://www.cypeurope.com/store/store/app/product/PU-44XL-KIT/Express-Installation-Kit---4-x-4-HDBaseT%E2%84%A2-LITE-Matrix-with-PU-514L-RX-Receivers
Am i right in my thinking that 1 cable from each of these rooms having first terminated in the patch panel will then connect to the matrix, also connected to the matrix would be 4 different receivers i.e sky box, apple tv, dvd? All located in the av room/cupboard

 

[filmstar]

Night Owl
would i need a patch panel? Could i just terminate the 17 cat cables into the device you suggested with my remaining 4 cat cables into the matrix?

 

[Beachnative]

You could do that and avoid having to get small jumper cables going from the patch panel to the switch and removing a point of failure. However it looks like a well organized plan designed with flexibility if you go with the patch panel and jumpers. Also with jumpers it allows you to change the layout of your wiring if you decide to relocate hardware..

 

[filmstar]

Thanks, really appreciate your advice