How much cable can I have between the broadband wall socket and the router?

[Iain Shields]

Hi folks, I'm a bit new to this so please be gentle!!!...

I'm thinking of going with ADSL broadband for my pc and xbox (no cable in my area), my problem is that the broadband wall socket will be downstairs and at the moment the pc and xbox are in a room upstairs therefore I need (I think) to run a cable from the wall socket up the stairs and into the room with the router feeding the pc and xbox (am I correct so far?)

...If yes, then how much cable can I use (and what type) before I start to get data drop-outs?... or is this not a problem?

One other thing, if you all don't mind :blush:

I'm also thinking of ugrading my pc, if I go for 1 of the nforce2 motherboards am I right in thinking that I can get online by just connecting a lead from the router to the 10/100 socket on the board or do I need some sort of modem aswell?

That's my lot...

Thanks in advance for the replies folks.

Regards,
Iain.

[graham.myers]

I've got a 10 meter cable between my dsl modem and the router. I had a similar situation to you, but I went the wi-fi route.

The router is in the same (but opposite end of the room high on a dvd shelp). The PC is upstairs with a pci wi-fi card. I have a laptop with a pcmcia wi-fi card so it can roam in any room. The xbox is in the same room as the router so its plugged into the back of it with a cable. All my kit is linksys and came to under £200 for all three pices of kit.

You can get a wi-fi connection for the xbox - about £75 for the linksys model

[paiger]

Iain,

The Router is basically a modem and network hub built in. You plug the Router into the ADSL line and then you have the start of a small network. From the router you will run Cat 5 patch cables to each computer or Xbox etc.

You may also add a hub to split the cable at any point. So, in your case you could have a long Cat 5 cable (up to 100m) from the router (near the socket) to a hub upstairs and then have cables from that to each computer. The 10/100 socket on the mobo you are interested in should mean that it has ethernet built in and so would plug straight into this kind of system with standard leads.

You may also go the wireless route as graham says which saves a lot of hassle and may be cheaper for a new install. You can get a wireless router or you can plug an access point into a standard router. You will need a wireless card for each PC though.

[Sinzer]

Cat5 can go a long way before you will notice any issues.

Yes, most N-force 2 motherboards will have an in built ethernet adaptor, that will work fine when you plug into the router. I recommend ASUS or Epox, ASUS if you can afford it, EPOX if money is an issue.

There are many threads on wireless networks, just run a search on the forums.

[Iain Shields]

Thanks for the replies guys... that's just the info I was after :smashin:

The reason why I hadn't mentioned wireless is that I thought that it wasn't as fast as using a cable and as such would loose some of my connection speed, is this the case?

Thanks again :smoke:

Regards,
Iain.

[graham.myers]

most adsl is 500k, dsl (cable) is600k (what I have) or 1mb

the cheapest wi-fi (the one I have) is 11mb (802.11b), and the fastest is 54mb (802.11g)

so really you're only using 1/10th the bandwith of a wi-fi network even if you were to max out the fastest dsl connection.

unless you want to transfer a lot of data between different machines on your network then 11mb is the way to go.