Hub/Switch

[jtecj]

Alright I'm kind of out of the loop on this sort of thing so if this is a completely stupid question go easy on me...And I did try to search for the answer already and think I found it but I'm not sure...dont really understand a lot of what I read on here lol, anyway to the question. Whats the difference between a "switch" and a Network "Hub". I am trying to network my computer and laptop together so that they will run a game( Command&Conquer The first Decade) and I've done it before but that was years ago( on starcraft) and somehow the hub got thrown away, so a couple days ago I went to BestBuy and baught a switch cause I thought it seemed like the same thing as a hub and even looked identicle...now the networking doesnt seem to be working and I'm not sure if maybe the laptop and or the computer don't have networking cards or if its just the "switch" that I had baught...and up till a couple days ago I had never heard of a "switch"....anyway hope yall can help I would appreciate it very much.

Thnkx in advance

-Justin-

P.S.-I also realised that I posted this twice, once in this forum and once in the Miscelanious/ off topic section on accident when I was looking at someone elses post. If someone that reads this has the power feel free to delete the one thats in the off topic section thnkx.

 

[gary.shi]

switch have more than one collision-domain as many as its port's number,but hub just have one!

 

[Law]

Just make sure each computer IP is in the same network, a switch doesn't know that. That's why your game aren't working or you may have a firewall running.

 

[brrymnvette]

A hub will take whatever packet is sent into it and send it out all other ports. A switch learns what's out each port and will direct any incoming packet to the correct port. Make any sense? I would do as Law said, sounds like they aren't on the same network.

 

[dakta]

a Hub grabs any data comming to one port and sends at flying out of all the others (in some cases re-amplifying the signal). This means that when using bandwidth intensive applications even nodes that do not wish to receive or be part of this communication will see this data. Or in other words mate, with a hub all your computers will contend for room to communicate, a bottleneck for larger networks, and one big collision domain which really isn't ideal.

Switches solve this issue. Basically instead of forwarding all data to every port they learn the address of the computers attached to each specific port, creating much smaller collision domains, in most cases just between the switch and each individual computer. This means that performance will be increased since computers will not have to compete as much 'to get heard' on the network.

Hope this helps make things clearer.

 

[b_young86]

Switches are smart hubs. Go with a switch, and make sure they have the same domain/subdomain. All else fails, just get a router, it has a built in smart switch