Whats the difference between a switch and a router

iDunnoiDunno Dallas, Tejas
edited August 2003 in Science & Tech
My friend and i want to have a lan party with some other couple of friends and we wont have any means of sharing the internet connection. I am stumped on what to buy to share the connection. Should we buy a like a 4 Port switch or a 4 port router thingy. Thanks.

edit: oh can you post some links to some websites that sell a router or a port, im looking for the cheapest solution since this is our first lan and we dunno if we are gonna do it again. Thanks

Comments

  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited July 2003
    what a router does, is take your internet IP and assign IP's to every other computer connected to it. you probably need a router at your lan, because in many cases if the lan holder has a cable connection then he is paying for 1 computer to show up, or one mac address. a router has its own mac address, while managing the mac addresses of all the other computers. thus, if you have a 32 port router, timewarner or whoever still sees 1 computer. a switch does not go through the tedious process of assigning IP's. thus having a switch directly connected to a cable modem WILL NOT let you access the internet (i always have web access at LANs, cause it lets you get patches and all that). but if you're doing JUST a lan and dont need a web connection, then just a large switch would be fine. in my experience, if you dont try to connect the switch to an input line (like the output from your cable modem) then windows, if you have DHCP enabled, assigns eveyrone an IP of 0.0.0.0, and you can all see each other and lan. hope that answers ... something

    i looked around a little on techbargains to find you some cheapass networking stuff.

    heres a $10 compaq 5-port switch http://store.yahoo.com/livewarehouse/nccp20410.html

    here is a D-Link DI-604 4-port router from newegg http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=DI%2D604

    a couple other things. routers usually will have a lightweight built-in firewall, and many of them have network printing capabilities as well as other stuff.
  • iDunnoiDunno Dallas, Tejas
    edited July 2003
    ok, so if i go and buy that router that you said, all i need to do is hook the cable modem to the router, and hook the other computers to the router and im done? Is there other software or stuff that I need to install or configure in windows to that we can all see each other and so that we can lan on counter-strike?
    thanks
  • TemplarTemplar You first.
    edited July 2003
    More often than not, routers will allow you to LAN and hit the internet as soon as you plug in. I've had some anomalies develop using different windows Platforms, but nothing too serious.

    I've also had a problem with Charter cable assigning the router an IP address. This could be caused by different Mac addresses in their database as I had the modem connected direction to my machine via Cat5. It works now, but it was a pain in the ass then. After you get it running and customized to your specific needs (which you should only need an out-of-the-box config), routers will stay up for a long time.
  • NixxerNixxer Nottingham, UK
    edited July 2003
    On my network, four computers connect into a hub, then the hub connects into the router, aswell as four other computers and my modem. Works fine, didn't have to intstall anything to access the network or the internet. Any problems I've had (mainly with web server) have been solver by downloading the lastest firmware for the router. I advise you do when/if you get one.
  • khankhan New
    edited August 2003
    all a router does is assign IP addresses. the most common routers (linksys and others) are actually routers with built in switches basically the definitions look like this

    Router: assigns IP to computers that connect to it, and provides a "front" for a network, hiding all computers behind it on a single IP on the WAN (wide area network, i.e. your neighborhood, or the whole internet)

    Hub: Takes packets and rebroadcasts them to every computer connected to it. All computers under a hub will "share" the bandwith because only one can "talk" at a time.

    Switch: is a smart hub. it looks at where packets are trying to go, and makes a number of connections very rapidly, segmenting the network and making the neccesary connections on its own. this allows multiple connections to be active at the same time, with everything operating at full speed (more or less).

    The routers you're looking at buying are routers with built in switches. if you're doing a LAN and you want internet access, the way to you want to do it is thusly: cable modem connected to WAN port on router, computers connected to router's built in switch. if you have more computers than that, buy a switch (a hub will work too, but a switch is more better-er), and plug the uplink port on the switch into one of the router ports, and then the other computers into the switch. if you run out of ports again, the same applies, another switch into one of the first switch's ports will add more ports to your network. This daisy chain can be continued quite a ways, up to, I believe, 254 computers. Basically, anything that can "connect" to the router, either through its built in switch, or a daisy-chained switch or hub, will be assigned an IP and be able to access the internet through the router.
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