Wired and Wireless Connections

[Chuckc3]

I am experiencing some problems finding computers on my home network which is connected to a Verizon FIOS router to the internet.

1. Problem 1 is that sometimes computers on the network have difficulty finding other computers.  I think this problem might be due to the fact that I have two laptops that can connect to the network either with a wired or wireless connection and the same computer will get a different IP address depending on whether it is a wired or wireless connection.  I think this is causing some problems.  Is there any way I can force the DHCP to assign the same IP address to a given computer whether it is using a wireless or wired connection?
   
   
2. Problem 2 is I don't seem to be getting full speed for transferring data inside my home network.  All of the computers that connect via a wired connection to the home network connect to a Gigabit router and the router connects to the externally-facing Verizon router.  What I'm trying to accomplish is to get gigabit speeds for internal transfers within my home network, but naturally, the speed will be limited for any external transfers that have to go outside of the home network through the Verizon FIOS router.  The speed of the internal connections inside the home network seems slower than it should be - I'm only getting about  50MB typically.  What can I do to improve the internal speed of my home network?

Thanks,

[gamer99]

  1.   I think what you are trying to do is to setup a STATIC IP on these computers.   You can log into the Router web portal configuration page via 192.168.1.1 and then go to the advanced tab --> ip address distribution --> connection list --> this is where you can assign STATIC IP to your machines.

  2. Transfer rate between hard drive to hard drive are considerably slow. Most likely transfer rates within Home LAN network should be less than 50mb.   Not sure what you are trying to do.  Transfer data between wireless are extremely slow.  

[CaptainSTX]

The Actiontec router will let you assign a static IP to a MAC address, but since every adapter in a device has a seperate MAC it will pull or be assigned a seperate IP.   For instance if your laptop has both an Ethernet adapter, 2.4 Ghz adapter and a 5 Ghz adapter it will have three IPs.

As for why you are not getting higher speeds on your LAN, you need to determine if the devices that are connected using Ethernet have Gigabyte adapters.   If not then the best you might get is 70 -90 Mbps.   When you are testing both ends of  the test path   need to be Gigabyte capable.

Other things that could be slowing you down is testing to a USB connected drive.  While the spec for USB 2 is 480 Mbps getting 50 Mbps would actually be excellent throughput.

Testing  using devices with slow processors, slow hard drives, not enough RAM, etc.  will also drag down your speed.

[Chuckc3]

Thanks for your response.  I am using static IP's that I have assigned in the router DHCP, but as another reply has pointed out, I don't think it's possible to assign the same IP address to two different MAC addresses.  For example, both of my laptops have a wireless and a wired NIC interface that have different MAC addresses.  So I probably just have to accept the fact that they are going to have different IP addresses depending on whether they are connected via a wired connection or a wireless connection.  The real issue is getting Windows to recognize them as the same device even though they have different IP addresses.  I think I may have to solve that problem in a different way.

[Chuckc3]

Regarding the transfer rate problem, the devices in question all have gigabit ethernet adapters and are all using cat 5e cabling to connect.  The configuration I have is I have one Trendnet ethernet switch immediately inside of the Verizon FIOS router and two other smaller Trendnet ethernet switches connected to that.  All of the Trendnet switches have port sensing and seem to be sensing a 1GB connection but the actual throughput I'm getting for transferring large files is only around 10MB.

What I'm wondering is this...I would assume that local traffic from one 192.168.1.x address to another stays totally inside the network and is passed through the 1GB ethernet switches without even passing through the router so the speed should be determined by the ethernet switches and not the router, correct?  Is there anything in the router tha I need to configure to make that happen?

[CaptainSTX]

You are. correct that data stays within the switch and doesn't involve the router when the traffic is entirely on the LAN

[db909]

Switches are dumb boxes that generally are not configurable.  50 MB/s  transfer rate between wired machines is pretty common, 10 MB/s, something is going on.   You said both 50 and 10, so I am not sure which you are seeing. 

I would double check the lights on your switch and make sure they are sensing a gigabit connection.

I have a cheap Trendnet gigabit switch I bought on sale a few years ago and get 110 MB/s as a general rule between SATA III drives when transferring between  2 wired PCs.  If one of your PCs is older and has a slow drive that too could be your issue.