So I've just had Virgin 100mb installed today, and have already spent more than an hour on the phone to them!

It turns out the Virgin Media Super Hub, a cable modem/router combo unit isn't up to much - although most people on the net seem to be complaining about the poor wireless duties, my woes concern the ethernet ports. Essentially, I'd simply hoped to swap out the Virgin box for the (now retired) Bulldog/Pipex/Talk-Talk one - and continue to use our 8 port Netgear GS608 to distribute the LAN around the house. But the not-so-super "Super Hub" apparently doesn't like to play with other switches, and creates (as I've read) "Double NAT'ing" issues - whatever that means! Frustratingly, connected direct into the Super Hub the speeds are as promised, averaging 101-106mb (on speedtest.net), but once going via the switch, that speed drops off CONSIDERABLY.

So after protracted delays trying to get hold of someone on Virgin, I was walked through disabling the wifi and router features of the "Super Hub" so that it acts purely as a modem - which I could live with as I've still got our wireless router, and a workstation setup to act as an access point anyway. Things looked rosy - the "option" kills all but one of the four ethernet ports and when connected to that (directly) I was able to see speeds averaging 100mb.

...my understanding of networks/switches and such being as low-level as they are, I simply thought a switch was just a way of splitting/sharing/connecting lan connections - so I put it between the "Super Hub" and my laptop - expecting there to be no change to anything - but immediatly saw a slight drop in speed. Subsequent connections bring the speed down further.

So here I am, punching in ADSL/Cable/Modem/Router/Switch into google and getting nowhere. So I have to ask the most stupid question of the day:

Is there a difference between an ethernet switch for ADSL and ones for "Cable" ?

I have to ask because it never behaved like this with the ADSL modem - and (quite fairly) Virgin tech. support can't assist me with the 3rd party appliance - seeing as, in their eyes, there is nothing wrong with their unit working (well, save for the fact that the majority of it's "extended" wifi/router functions are entirely worthless to anyone needing more than four ethernet ports and want to daisy-chain other equipment! ) - and if it's a case of me buying a better switch, I guess I'll have to will. Because I can't make sense of Threads like these

OK some rather paraphrased definitions:

1. Switch - connects devices onto one network. All the devices have the same local, internal IP address range such as 192.168.0.x - note that a switch is a switch, and there is no such thing as a "cable" or "ADSL" one.

2. Router - connects the outside public IP address (WAN) to the internal network (LAN) using NAT (Network Address Translation). An ADSL router has a built in ADSL modem. A Cable router does not - it needs to be plugged into a cable modem or other source of internets rather than a phone line. Note that most "ADSL routers" are actually 3 devices in one - a modem, a NAT router and a 4 port switch.

3. Double NAT - what happens when you plug the WAN port of one router into the LAN port of another router, so the public IP is translated twice. This is a bad idea in most cases (not all) and if the middle IP address clashes, then it wont work well at all.

4. 100meg - a measurement of speed you'll never see on a 100meg network device, but can on a 1gig network device when the ports are working at 1gig.

5. Throughput - the actual speed a device is capable of.

Your GS608 is a 1gig switch. In theory, it should work fine in conjunction with the "super hub". However, there is a real chance that the speed negotiation isn't working and the connection between the two is dropping back to 100meg rather than 1gig. This will hit the speed. Note, there is absolutely not an issue here with "double NAT" because the GS608 does not do NAT - it's a switch, not a router.

Your old router is probably not Gigabit so it will slow down the connection. 100meg is just too damned fast for old hardware to keep up with. Even if it's rated at 1gig on the LAN side it probably isn't on the WAN side.

Cheers for the info JJ, very handy.

To clarify then, up until yesterday it was : Talk-Talk 24mb ADSL Line > "SpeedTouch 510 v6" ADSL Modem/Router 10/100 >

Today I changed to : Virgin 100mb Cable Line > "Virgin Media Super Hub" Cable Modem/Router 10/100/1000 >

Plugged straight into the "Virgin Media Super Hub" I get this:


Connected to the "Virgin Media Super Hub" (via : Cat 5 > Netgear GS608 10/100/1000 > Cat 5 > Computers with gigabit ports) I get this :


Somethings not quite right there.

I can't see the first speed test for some reason, but I'm guessing it was good. (Oh wait - suddenly there it is - 94meg yes good!)

The only thing I can really think is that the link has dropped way down to 10 megs, although even that wouldn't really explain the upload dropping so sow.

Does the switch have different coloured lights or any other way to know what speed each port is connecting at?

If that's not the problem, then I can only guess maybe it's down to MTU or possibly something with Jumbo packets. However, since it's not a managed switch I really don't know what you could do. I'd hesitate to recommend a new switch because I just don't know if it will fix it. Can you "borrow" one from somewhere?

:edit: can I just check, you only have the same PC plugged in? It's not like someone else on the switch is using all the bandwidth?

The switch has yellow for 100, green for 1000. All lights are green. Only mine is flashing (accessing) - the others are filled, and the results are the same with the others disconnected anyway, so it's not like one my flatmates has set the world on download.

I could potentially borrow a switch from work on Monday, we've two lying around in our IT room gathering dust - I think they're 10/100 units, which would be a shame to drop down to because we access each other's shares quite a fair bit (when everything's working that is).

I've just posted this on the Virgin forum - hopefully there's a resolve in sight.

Well your first reply is "welcome to the club", which doesn't sound good...

With those speeds (1 meg up) may as well try a 100 meg switch. Even try using your old router as a switch.

The irony is, it might be that the "super duper router" is being too clever. Frankly, that Virgin forum is probably your best place to get information because I've never used one and I doubt many people here have. I'll answer any questions I can, but without any experience I doubt I can be much use to you.

Can you actually log into the router and change anything? Like turn off jumbo packets and fix the port speed to 1 gig full duplex?

It may be that the simplest solution is to use a PC as a router, since you can get the full speed connected directly. Do you have one with two interfaces that is always on?

There was an interesting write up about how to optimise routers, they based it on the netgear.

Hands on " Inside your router" march 2012 issue 209.

Hope that helps.

That would be in PCPro in case anyone was wondering.

LOL yes

I was going to ask!

Before I start fiddling with the switch (which I've never had to anything more to than plug in and watch the blinky lights do their thing)

I've had a bit of a think this morning before resuming my fight (I gave up and reconnected our still live ADSL last night so we could all resume our normal web usage - but have now unplugged that again)

Day #2

So I'm back sat in my flatmates room, on my laptop, plugged direct into the SuperHub (on modem mode) averaging 70-90 down, 5-8 up.

Before I go swapping the cables again in the hope that my switch will play nicely today, I have an alternative "solution" in my mind that I wanted to field here and see if it's viable.

We have a HTPC in our lounge, (some distance from the Super Hub) which we never turn off. Would it be possible to buy an extension lead for the coaxial coming out of the wall, relocate the Super Hub closer to the HTPC, have the HTPC "see" the same speeds I'm seeing now through direct connection to the Super Hub, then use ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) through the HTPC, via the Netgear Switch, to distribute to my other wired devices?

In theory it sounds like it should work.

Can't say I'd be pleased to spend further money than I should have to - it would just be nice to use my switch "as is" (and after this post will resume that fight) but if it's doable (and I see no reason why it shouldn't since we've been extending TV coaxial lines for years) then I might just give it a go - I think I even have a short length spare somewhere, so might do an artificial test with said shorter length first.

That's pretty much what I meant when I said "use a PC as a router".

Does it have two network ports? If not, you're going to have nowhere to plug the switch in...

Sorry JJ, I must have missed that, but yes it does, in fact up until Saturday I was succesfully sharing the htpc connection to the lan with our 360, so it'd simply be a bit of a switcheroo.

But if I were to follow that route to get everyone back on the lan (seeing as we all can't use/depend on the presently healthy wireless) would there be any issue with having so many devices and users going through a single computer? I mean in terms of resource allocation / bandwidth etc - or would that all happen in the background?> I don't eally want to compromise the performance of the htpc.

It's hard to say. It depends how good the drivers are, and how powerful the computer is. I wouldn't expect it to slow a modern PC down noticeably, but 100megs is potentially a lot of traffic so if the drivers are shoddy it may have an impact.

Silly questions time (well they're not exactly silly but).

1) Have you tried using a different cable between the superhub & the swich?
2) Have you tried using a crossover cable between the superhub & switch?
3) Are you sure all cables are Cat5e? (i.e. not cat3 spec or cat 6 as the vm router is a bit funny about cat 6)
4) If you plug 2 PC's in to the switch what's the average speed transferring files between them?

1. No, I've not got another length to try, but it used to work fine when it served a computer (at the end where the Super Hub now is) from the switch (which remains where it's always been.

2. No, haven't got any.

3. Good question - I don't think we're running any Cat 6, and I definately recall telling everyone to save the cash on Cat 5. Will have to check.

4. Can't say off hand - but it's always been pretty fast.