|
Can somebody help me understand what's going on with my parent's seemingly strange network setup? A least it's strange in my limited experience; maybe this is normal for people who get TV, internet and phone all from the same company. I want to finally get them off renting from the cable company and they've been having issues with their internet recently anyway. Ideally I'd like to kill two birds with one stone and just buy them a modem/router combo and be done with it, rather than go through the hassle of swapping out for different components from the cable company.  Apologies for the bad photos and information; I'm relaying this from a couple of 75 year olds and doing all of this remotely, so I can't get in there and actually get my hands on anything at the moment. An Arris TG2482 "Cable Voice Gateway" and an Arris TM824 modem with a Netgear splitter thing in between, which has an ethernet and two coax cables going into it. Can anybody recommend a modem/router that would simplify this setup and also accommodate the existing phone/TV hookups? They use Suddenlink for all three services. Is there any other information I need?
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2021 20:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 16:39 |
|
|
Lester Shy posted:Can somebody help me understand what's going on with my parent's seemingly strange network setup? A least it's strange in my limited experience; maybe this is normal for people who get TV, internet and phone all from the same company. My guess would be that originally the cable company just had modems out in the field and wanted to add VoIP, so to install that used the Netgear splitter thing to add a connection for the VoIP unit. The usual rule of thumb is to avoid combo devices, but in the case you describe getting a combo device that serves as modem, router, and VoIP gateway probably makes sense. My parents have such a device through Comcast and it works okay - the range of the wireless could be better, but they insist on it living in a less than ideal spot in the house.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2021 00:38
|
|
|
Any recommendations for a 10 Gbps PCIe x4 NIC?
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2021 02:53
|
|
|
fletcher posted:Any recommendations for a 10 Gbps PCIe x4 NIC? I have two Mellanox ConnectX-3 MCX311A-XCAT. ~$35 on ebay (+ whatever you need in sfp+ modules / cables) and they just worked for me in win10 and esxi.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2021 03:11
|
|
|
FancyMike posted:I have two Mellanox ConnectX-3 MCX311A-XCAT. ~$35 on ebay (+ whatever you need in sfp+ modules / cables) and they just worked for me in win10 and esxi. Wow that's a lot cheaper than some of the other options I've been looking at, thanks for the suggestion. This thing will be right next to the switch so I can just DAC to it. I hate ebay but hard to say no to that. I just got to test my 18 year old in house cat5e wiring for multi-gig for the first time to see how it'd do (I think it's a ~70ft run or so). Unifi shows it as 10G and Windows shows it as 5G, iperf less than that:  Glad to see it was at least the 2 Gbps I need for fiber!
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2021 04:05
|
|
|
CaptainSarcastic posted:My guess would be that originally the cable company just had modems out in the field and wanted to add VoIP, so to install that used the Netgear splitter thing to add a connection for the VoIP unit. The usual rule of thumb is to avoid combo devices, but in the case you describe getting a combo device that serves as modem, router, and VoIP gateway probably makes sense. My parents have such a device through Comcast and it works okay - the range of the wireless could be better, but they insist on it living in a less than ideal spot in the house. suppooooosedly suddenlink doesn't support a combo unit for voip (my parents are also on their service) they also took a million years to take up docsis 3, and then 3.1
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2021 05:35
|
|
|
Dogen posted:suppooooosedly suddenlink doesn't support a combo unit for voip (my parents are also on their service) Yeah, I'd never heard of Suddenlink before and just did a brief enough search to see they appear to be a cable company. If they are super poo poo then choosing hardware might be more difficult. I worked for an ISP in the mid 2000s that had to manually provision modems and clients, so if someone didn't have a router and wanted to change from their computer to a gaming console they had to call in for us to manually change the MAC address that was allowed online. Every. Single. Time. There was this one stoner guy who would do this fairly frequently, and he was always super chill and patient about it. We were all kind of sad when he got a router and didn't have to call in anymore.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2021 07:05
|
|
|
I encourage anyone who can configure a thing to roll their own VoIP if you don’t have a home alarm system, life support monitor, or nuclear launch controls. I use LES.net which is dirt cheap, a few bucks a month for the account. If you port a number it’s a couple bucks a month for that. A grandstream ATA is inexpensive and you’re good to go. Service has been great, super reliable. Has features to boot, and no jacking around with Google voice or whatever trying to penny pinch a couple of bucks. Anyone paying a cable company $40 a month for phone is getting robbed handily.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2021 02:23
|
|
|
otter posted:The Eero tech support people claim that having them too close interferes with the signal. This is true-ish. If they're on the same channel, or channels close enough to overlap, there can be interference, yeah. But if you're running them on channels that don't have any overlap, there's no real downside*. *Provided your equipment doesn't get confused and switch back and forth between APs constantly. Lester Shy posted:Can somebody help me understand what's going on with my parent's seemingly strange network setup? A least it's strange in my limited experience; maybe this is normal for people who get TV, internet and phone all from the same company. Unfortunately, getting phone service from a cable company pretty much universally means you're going to be stuck with some pretty terrible hardware somewhere (unless something's changed since I switched to fiber). The voice stuff relies on hardware that isn't readily available to ordinary people, and is usually integrated with a modem and probably wifi, too. fletcher posted:Any recommendations for a 10 Gbps PCIe x4 NIC? Intel or bust, IMO. I get mine off of eBay. Usually OEM-branded (HP/Dell/etc.) server pulls with the same chipsets as the ones I want, since they tend to be stupid cheap that way, and you don't have to put them in OEM-branded motherboards as long as they have standard connectors like PCIe. Partycat posted:I encourage anyone who can configure a thing to roll their own VoIP if you don’t have a home alarm system, life support monitor, or nuclear launch controls. Even if you do have a home alarm system, life support monitor, or nuclear launch controls, I wouldn't recommend cable company phone service for it. If you ever have any issues and something really loving bad happens as a result, they're just going to shrug and tell you to piss off. For poo poo like that which has to be hooked up to a phone line, nothing beats old-school copper POTS. Kreeblah fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jul 11, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2021 04:11
|
|
|
Sure, though copper POTS is a dying beast now in a number of markets . My general experience is the cable company doesn’t care to deal with equipment other than voice devices. If you have other things they may not be plug and play and require some fooling. Digitizer may not pick up on fast DTMF from an alarm panel, fax may have to be set to 9600 etc. otherwise hope you can get reliable internet from some isp or cell provider and upgrade your gear at this point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2021 14:26
|
|
|
Partycat posted:Sure, though copper POTS is a dying beast now in a number of markets . My general experience is the cable company doesn’t care to deal with equipment other than voice devices. If you have other things they may not be plug and play and require some fooling. . . . I just realized I misread what you wrote. I didn't see the "don't" in there, and thought you were advocating cable voice for modem use, which, uh, yeah, your experience basically matches mine. Whoops.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 01:42
|
|
|
I’ve got a PtP link I use to link two houses that are approximately 1/2 mile apart. I’m currently using two Ubiquiti Nanostation M5s for this (the 802.11n version). This has more or less worked fine for the last five years. I think I’m beginning to run into issues with interference from trees however. Over the last month, the link has been getting weaker and weaker, to the point that it’s failing even during a light rainstorm. Would upgrading to something like a Lightbeam AC LR help me here? https://www.ui.com/airmax/litebeam-ac-gen2/ Looking at the spec sheets on UI.com, the Litebeam LR model has a max transmit power of 25dbm, where my Nanostation M5 has a max transmit power of 27dbm. Both have similar reception sensitivities. The Litebeam has a more directional antenna and the link tool they have seems to indicate it’ll be a stronger link (-25dbm vs -44dbm with the Nanostations). Unfortunately I don’t really have a good way to get internet to the other house and the link has just about failed completely lately. I’m hoping that the Litebeam will be a decent solution.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 12:50
|
|
|
Trim the trees maybe?
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 14:30
|
|
|
namlosh posted:Trim the trees maybe? Not possible, unfortunately. They are almost entirely located on property that isn’t owned by me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 14:43
|
|
|
Or route around them, but I assume you had considered that and they’re pretty much blocking your only los.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 15:56
|
|
|
LordOfThePants posted:Not possible, unfortunately. They are almost entirely located on property that isn’t owned by me. Talk to the property owner and offer to trim the trees yourself / pay to have them trimmed?
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 17:15
|
|
|
I have a bunch of Unifi POE devices using their AF Poe injectors. Is there a single Poe injector that I can use to replace the six or so I'm using now? Any recommendations from goons here would be great.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 19:52
|
|
|
Gyshall posted:I have a bunch of Unifi POE devices using their AF Poe injectors. What are all the POE injectors plugged into? Sounds like you just need a POE switch with enough ports, then you can ditch all the injectors. I'm using the USW-16-POE for this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 20:19
|
|
|
So I recently moved from an apartment into a house, and the only connection available is 22mbit ADSL. The good news is that while I'm suffering with this, they are rolling out some fiber and are promising 2.5G as an option, with it potentially being raised to 10G sometime in the future. Another nice touch is that you can select from a good selection of ISPs who all lease the fiber from the network operator. My question is, some of the ISPs are pretty barebones and only put up the termination unit, and don't supply a router at all. This is interesting because it allows you to get a better monthly fee in exchange for a higher upfront cost. Another benefit is you get to nerd out an put together some stuff yourself. Some brief googling later and I'm thinking of getting an Asus RT-AX89X which has both a 10G RJ45 and SFP+ port. After that I was thinking of placing a QNAP QSW-M408S (cheap SFP+ switch) which would connect the router, a server and my desktop PC on 10G. All other devices would either get 1G ethernet or wireless. Is this layout dumb? I have an Asus router currently which has been very solid but I haven't had any QNAP stuff. Are they good enough?
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 20:58
|
|
|
fletcher posted:What are all the POE injectors plugged into? Sounds like you just need a POE switch with enough ports, then you can ditch all the injectors. I'm using the USW-16-POE for this. I have a USW Pro (non POE) and don't really feel like shelling out the $$$ for the upgraded version at this point. So just looking to consolidate all my injectors until I'm ready to do another upgrade in the future.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 20:59
|
|
|
If it’s really .3af power then any PoE midspan is fine. Just be wary of 100M ones that only have two pair bridged through, get one that supports 4 pair/gig like something from powerdsine and patch through it. If it’s the 24V power then perhaps there’s a product that supports that output but I am not sure off the top of my head.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 22:41
|
|
|
LordOfThePants posted:Not possible, unfortunately. They are almost entirely located on property that isn’t owned by me. Can you raise the radios to get the trees out of the fresnel zone , it will buy you some time. I’m assuming you’ve also rechecked alignment, that something hasn’t tipped or tilted. Otherwise I’d say drop out of 5GHz to something lower?
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 22:42
|
|
|
Partycat posted:Can you raise the radios to get the trees out of the fresnel zone , it will buy you some time. I’m assuming you’ve also rechecked alignment, that something hasn’t tipped or tilted. Otherwise I’d say drop out of 5GHz to something lower? I should be able to raise them, that bought me a little time two years ago. I’ll double check the alignment of the source Nanostation, but I have them tightened down pretty well and pole mounted so unless an enormous bird ran into it, it’s probably still good. If trimming the trees was possible, I’d have went that route. I’m sending the signal across a state highway and some of the trees are on state owned land, I’m not thinking they’ll be in a big hurry to help me. I was thinking “buy a bigger antenna” to solve this problem was likely not the solution, so I’m glad I confirmed that before dropping $250 hardware.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2021 23:18
|
|
|
I am not a microwave pro myself, but it’s possible by narrowing the beam width , if that’s possible , you may have less loss. Adding more gain (assuming you’re not already at max legal limit with the antenna) doesn’t seem like you’re going to accomplish much for the dollar value. They make 900MHz radios, and 2.4GHz as well. I’d end up deferring to link calculations before buying more hardware of any sort IMO, but I believe the 900MHz is the best option given the foliage but nothing may work forever or with high performance.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2021 01:38
|
|
|
Heyo, I'll be moving in a bit to a new apartment, and I was just curious about something in terms of -some- network security/separation & privacy: Nearly every place I went to viewings of, the place I ended up going for included, simply has a shared network with the landlords (ugh), as opposed to a dedicated internet connection for the unit, which I find kinda sketchy. (Thankfully they're open to me getting in a dedicated line if I -really- want one.) My first instinct is that I might just pay for getting the apartment hooked up and get it's own internet connection, even though that'll mean paying ~50-80usd a month for 100-250 up/down or so internet, vs getting a chunk of 1000/1000 for free through the landlords. Because I'd very much like the privacy and security of having my own internet+network, especially since I have a lot of networked storage + streaming, VR-streaming, etc. However, since I'm a computer toucher by trade (3D/VR) they were really keen about upgrading their home network in the near future, and are curious if I could help them do it, which means I can adapt it a bit for my own use. So that brings me to the question: If I set up a mesh network for them, would it be possible to set up dedicated subnets or VLANs fairly easily, to keep our networks separate? I was thinking maybe something like getting a Ubiquiti setup (Dream Machine + 2 UniFi U6-LRs or lites?), since they're pretty reasonably priced, and it seems like setting up VLANs on it would be pretty simple since they seem more configurable than most of the consumer-oriented stuff. My primary goal is really just to keep things separate, so that they can't see/interact with my devices, and vice-versa. (In normal use anyhow.) Would this be a practical approach? I'm sort of expecting them to be entirely separate, just that they access the same internet connection, making for a nice and tidy 'me' network and a 'them' network, with separate SSIDs. Or have I fundamentally misunderstood how VLANs function in practice? Sorry if I'm barging in here asking 'duhhh' level questions. Illustration included:  SN/VLAN green and blue. Ubiquiti does seem pretty appealing, since it seems a lot more configurable than some of the off-the-shelf mesh kits. Not to mention a lot cheaper than the higher end kits.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 03:17
|
|
|
LordOfThePants posted:I should be able to raise them, that bought me a little time two years ago. I’ll double check the alignment of the source Nanostation, but I have them tightened down pretty well and pole mounted so unless an enormous bird ran into it, it’s probably still good. I worked for an ISP that did wireless broadband, and some parts of it were LoS dishes. Trees and RVs were common sources of angst for our customers. HAM radio operators were another. Raising the antennas and trying a different frequency both make sense. The parts of our network that were omnidirectional were newer and less of a pain in the rear end, but we had like 4 different wireless solutions out in the field from different generations of hardware.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 07:23
|
|
|
SubNat posted:Illustration included: That would work, but those red lines between the two APs would also be blue. I don’t think you’ll be at all impressed with your data rates in this setup though and it feels like you are setting yourself up to be their tech support for everything. If it was me, I’d just try and get a hard line from their router running to your own and just have them point a static route to it. Just disable NAT on your end and do whatever ACL blocking on that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 13:40
|
|
|
Yeah, I'll be trying to get a line there, but I have to move in (in a couple weeks) so I can scope out where things are, etc. The apartment is almost a bunker, and encased in soundproofing and concrete that they're not keen on piercing, understandably. That setup is more 'last option/backup' in a worst case scenario. Hopefully I'll find some easy place to chuck the cable through which'll make everything a lot more practical. (The apartment has it's own power meter and etc, so Powerline is probably out of the question.) (Or just bite the bullet and pay 600-1000usd/yr for my own internet down there, making things a lot easier. Though I'd rather spend that money elsewhere if I can get this to work decently.) As for tech support, I imagine that'd happen regardless as long as I'm on speaking terms with them, so I might as well benefit a bit from it and set things up to suit myself a bit while doing so.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 14:28
|
|
|
so I have a ubiquiti edgerouter lite and ap from about five years ago, are they worth setting up at my new place or do I need to get new stuff if it ever comes in stock?
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 20:03
|
|
|
Zodium posted:so I have a ubiquiti edgerouter lite and ap from about five years ago, are they worth setting up at my new place or do I need to get new stuff if it ever comes in stock? What model AP do you have, and how many client devices? How fast is your internet connection in the new place? The ERL is still good up to gigabit symmetric with hardware offload enabled, so no need to replace it unless you need features that it can't do on the fast path such as QoS.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 20:27
|
|
|
SamDabbers posted:What model AP do you have, and how many client devices? How fast is your internet connection in the new place? it's a UAP-AC-LR. i'm not sure if I need QoS, so I probably don't.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 20:54
|
|
|
Zodium posted:it's a UAP-AC-LR. i'm not sure if I need QoS, so I probably don't. I think that's still getting firmware updates so I'd just update it and leave it alone until you're unhappy with its performance. I replaced one basic 2.4ghz only Unifi AP at a client's office this year due to that model reaching end of life and losing support but it'd been there since 2013 or something. I replaced it with a UniFi 6 Lite Access Point which has been working great so far.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2021 21:17
|
|
|
Zodium posted:it's a UAP-AC-LR. i'm not sure if I need QoS, so I probably don't. Yep I'll echo Rexxed and say stay on that combo until it doesn't suit the needs anymore and just update the firmware. I'm running an ERL and UAP-AC-Lite with a 400/20 connection and see no reason to upgrade either at this point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2021 02:59
|
|
|
thanks, that's great, I really don't want to mess with the supply chains. sounds like my stuff will work for a basic router/switch/ap setup, maybe get one of those pi-holes i've been hearing about. longer term i'd like to do stuff with VPN (vpn router, pi-holing mobile devices when out of the house), but i'm guessing that would require upgrades.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2021 13:32
|
|
|
I need help troubleshooting a slow network experience my friends and I had at a LAN party I hosted. It was the first one I've hosted at my new house and current network setup, but I've hosted many in the past without issue. I have Comcast gigabit (1200 down/35 up) and the network was pfSense router (HP t730) to 8 port switch to 16 port switch where the ~12 PCs were setup. Some people were using wifi. We had no issues if we were just playing locally, but any game with almost any number of people playing online resulted in lots of rubber banding or big freezes in game. We were even still having issues when it was just 3 of us left at the house playing with two randoms online against bots in Heroes of the Storm. Speedtests and downloads were fine. Is the 35 Mbps upload speed making this not possible? In the past that's never been an issue. We even had a LAN at a cabin last year with horrendous internet. Updating/downloading games was impossible, but we were able to play online without issue. My normal network config doesn't include that 8 port switch, but I had to swap that in to get the right number of ports. I thought maybe it was doing something bad, but that probably would have affected the local games too. I don't really know what to look for or how to recreate this unless I get people back over here. I want to figure it out before the next one obviously. Thanks for your ideas.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2021 18:16
|
|
|
KingKapalone posted:I need help troubleshooting a slow network experience my friends and I had at a LAN party I hosted. It was the first one I've hosted at my new house and current network setup, but I've hosted many in the past without issue. I have Comcast gigabit (1200 down/35 up) and the network was pfSense router (HP t730) to 8 port switch to 16 port switch where the ~12 PCs were setup. Some people were using wifi. We had no issues if we were just playing locally, but any game with almost any number of people playing online resulted in lots of rubber banding or big freezes in game. We were even still having issues when it was just 3 of us left at the house playing with two randoms online against bots in Heroes of the Storm. Speedtests and downloads were fine. Ahhh network issues while hosting a LAN, my nightmare! I would think 1200/35 should be fine as long as you don't have multiple people streaming on twitch or something. I would have thought the HP t730 would be the culprit, but maybe not if you were still having issues with just 3 of you gaming. So my next guess would be that there is a bad network cable, maybe between the switch and the router? I'm not even sure if it can cause symptoms like that though... no idea what else it might be. Definitely curious what others in the thread think!
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2021 19:43
|
|
|
Kreeblah posted:This is true-ish. If they're on the same channel, or channels close enough to overlap, there can be interference, yeah. But if you're running them on channels that don't have any overlap, there's no real downside*. The bitch about Eero is that you have no control over the channels whatsoever. Since maintaining line-of-sight with all routers I have had much better speeds, but the drop outs continue. I'm just going to get a tyvek suit, and climb up into the attic and drop ethernet, I think. Wife decided she wants cable tv in the living room anyway, which means I need ethernet from the garage through the wall anyway so might as well do it. So now I have the challenge of "what equipment should I buy in terms of router / switch to locate in the garage? People in the thread seem to like ubiquiti edge routers, but is that overkill for what I'm doing? Need: Reliable ethernet connectivity for 3 wire drops. Reliable wifi connectivity. through the house and yard. Equipment I currently have: Archer A7 Eero mesh (x3 nodes) Apple Airport Extreme AC (x2 haha.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2021 19:49
|
|
|
fletcher posted:Ahhh network issues while hosting a LAN, my nightmare! I would think 1200/35 should be fine as long as you don't have multiple people streaming on twitch or something. I would have thought the HP t730 would be the culprit, but maybe not if you were still having issues with just 3 of you gaming. So my next guess would be that there is a bad network cable, maybe between the switch and the router? I'm not even sure if it can cause symptoms like that though... no idea what else it might be. Definitely curious what others in the thread think! Yeah it kind of sounds like something auto negotiated slower than gigabit. Could be a bad cable or an interface setup incorrectly or some such. I'd give everything a good once over and try some point to point speed testing on your network. Another option is that one of your guests forgot to stop seeding torrents when they came over or something and saturated the 35Mb upstream?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2021 21:34
|
|
|
Rexxed posted:Yeah it kind of sounds like something auto negotiated slower than gigabit. Could be a bad cable or an interface setup incorrectly or some such. I'd give everything a good once over and try some point to point speed testing on your network. Another option is that one of your guests forgot to stop seeding torrents when they came over or something and saturated the 35Mb upstream? I'll have to remember what cable I was using for the router to 8 port switch since that would be the first lifeline that was different. The cable from the modem to the router didn't change. What type of point to point testing should I do? I'd say the torrenting thing would be a common culprit but I don't think any of my friends to that and even when it was 3 of us at the end it was still happening.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2021 22:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 16:39 |
|
|
KingKapalone posted:I'll have to remember what cable I was using for the router to 8 port switch since that would be the first lifeline that was different. The cable from the modem to the router didn't change. What type of point to point testing should I do? I'd say the torrenting thing would be a common culprit but I don't think any of my friends to that and even when it was 3 of us at the end it was still happening. I'd probably start with an iperf running between your router and gaming rig, make sure it's able to saturate the 1 Gbps. Though if your speedtest was fine during the LAN despite having problems, it sounds like the iperf will probably be fine...Hmmm Also trying to think of how you could try and reproduce the issue for troubleshooting before everybody comes over again. I was thinking maybe a bunch of VMs running some simple multi-player game? Could be a lot of work to find out it's not even the right setup to be able to reproduce it though. In addition to the torrenting, automated backups would be another thing to look out for. Real time traffic stats of the network could be handy for debugging, but again that would only be at the point everybody is over and having problems. Do you have any QoS configured on the router?
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2021 00:21
|
|