General Computer Chat

[Buoysel]

Just a question, would connecting your computer with your internet cable directly speed it up much more than if you get it through a router from a different room?

Yes, a router does slow the speed of your network connection, however it is not really noticeable.

Wireless connections are also traditionally slower. (again, not really noticeable during web browsing and online gaming.)

And is it possible to split your internet cable in two, once going to your computer the other to a router?

You need to use a router do "spilt" your internet connection.

 

[Charizard★]

Yes, a router does slow the speed of your network connection, however it is not really noticeable.

Wireless connections are also traditionally slower. (again, not really noticeable during web browsing and online gaming.)

But is it noticeable when you're downloading something?

You need to use a router do "spilt" your internet connection.

But is there a different way to do it? By that I mean somehow using an external device or something to split it in two different wires, one connection with your computer the other to a router?

 

[Buoysel]

But is it noticeable when you're downloading something?

The slowest part of the download process is your internet connection. For me the fastest I can possibly download a file form the internet is 768 KB/s (0.75MB/s). Most computers connect through a 100Mb Ethernet cable. This is cable is capable of transferring files up to 12,800KB/s or 12.8 MB/s. Most WiFi routers have a connection speed of 54Mb/s (6.75MB/s) which is about half of the speed of a wired connection.

Mb = megabit
MB = megabyte
There are 8 bits in a byte.

But is there a different way to do it? By that I mean somehow using an external device or something to split it in two different wires, one connection with your computer the other to a router?

No, the data that comes through the cable is addressed to a specific computer, it has to have some sort of hardware to sift through the packets of data and forward them on to the correct computer. (you can use a computer to act as a router. You just have to know what you are doing, the easiest way is to bridge your network adapters, this only works if you have two network adapters, say a WiFi and a Ethernet connection. )

 

[TheAppleFreak]

But is it noticeable when you're downloading something?

Unless you obsessively monitor the speed, you shouldn't notice a difference. If you want to test it yourself, go to Speedtest.net and check your speed. On my new connection, I get about 18 Mbps on average with a wired connection, and around 17.9 (give or take about 0.05) with a wireless connection through two floors. The 0.1 Mbps difference is not noticeable.

But is there a different way to do it? By that I mean somehow using an external device or something to split it in two different wires, one connection with your computer the other to a router?

The router IS the external device. What happens is you plug the wire from the modem into your router, and then it divides up the packets to whatever is receiving them. A typical router will have a port to accept the wire from the modem, about three or four ports for multiple wired connections, and (usually) an antenna for wireless communications. Once again, under normal circumstances the speed difference is negligible.

Alternatively, as Buoysel said, you can use a computer as a router if you have two network adapters (usually an Ethernet port and a WiFi antenna) and knowledge about what you are doing, but there aren't any advantages to doing that, since there wouldn't be any speed gains over using a router and you'd have to have the computer on 24/7 (active on, not sleep mode).

 

[Charizard★]

The slowest part of the download process is your internet connection. For me the fastest I can possibly download a file form the internet is 768 KB/s (0.75MB/s). Most computers connect through a 100Mb Ethernet cable. This is cable is capable of transferring files up to 12,800KB/s or 12.8 MB/s. Most WiFi routers have a connection speed of 54Mb/s (6.75MB/s) which is about half of the speed of a wired connection.

Mb = megabit
MB = megabyte
There are 8 bits in a byte.

So, if I end up with a different type of cable, would I be able to change it?

No, the data that comes through the cable is addressed to a specific computer, it has to have some sort of hardware to sift through the packets of data and forward them on to the correct computer. (you can use a computer to act as a router. You just have to know what you are doing, the easiest way is to bridge your network adapters, this only works if you have two network adapters, say a WiFi and a Ethernet connection. )

Oh okay thanks.

@AppleFreak: But Buoysel said it would change :/

 

[Buoysel]

So, if I end up with a different type of cable, would I be able to change it?

Nope, you will not be able to tell the difference between having a wired connection, or using a WiFi router.

There are things that will affect speed that you will notice, if you are far away from WiFi router and there are a lot of obstacles between you, or if your computer is really slow, then you will notice a difference, otherwise you won't be able to tell.

@AppleFreak: But Buoysel said it would change :/

I said what would change?

 

[Charizard★]

Nope, you will not be able to tell the difference between having a wired connection, or using a WiFi router.

There are things that will affect speed that you will notice, if you are far away from WiFi router and there are a lot of obstacles between you, or if your computer is really slow, then you will notice a difference, otherwise you won't be able to tell.


I said what would change?

Wait, but didn't you say that the speed would change if you switch to connected internet?

I'm kind of confused @_@

 

[Archer]

Wait, but didn't you say that the speed would change if you switch to connected internet?

I'm kind of confused @_@

The only time that LAN will make a difference over wifi is if you are playing online games (PC only. Consoles are too slow to notice) or transferring files directly between two computers on your network. As in stuff you already have downloaded.

What is your Internet connection? Check at Speedtest.net.

 

[Charizard★]

It says it's Download speed is 1.85 Mbps and upload is .36 Mbps.


I meant with downloading things, it isn't faster if you have a cable attached vs. Wifi?

And if it helps, I can only download up to 190 kb/s since I'm on my router, if I were to change to a cable, would it be any faster?

 

[donavannj]

Wireless vs wired barely affects your download speed at all. Your internet connection speed from your router to the rest of the internet is what slows down your download speeds.

For example, my parents computer is wired directly into our main router to the outside internet, while my computer goes through a wireless router and then through that main router before going out to the internet. My computer often hogs much of the internet bandwidth if I am downloading large files. USING WIRELESS HAS NEXT TO NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW SLOW OR FAST YOU DOWNLOAD.

 

[♠Dawn Rayne♠]

Randomness to post here but my laptop hard drive got totally owned and destroyed the other day.. haha thank god I was able to transfer all the files over to the new hard drive though. The dude in the tech lab was shocked with how many gigs of music I had bought from iTunes, it took forever to transfer all of it...

Speaking of which, how many gigs of music is on your computers folks?

 

[DarkAlucard]

Randomness to post here but my laptop hard drive got totally owned and destroyed the other day.. haha thank god I was able to transfer all the files over to the new hard drive though. The dude in the tech lab was shocked with how many gigs of music I had bought from iTunes, it took forever to transfer all of it...

Speaking of which, how many gigs of music is on your computers folks?

10.2 GB of music, i don't know if it's too much or a normal quantity.

 

[Dannу]

I have 2.4 GB of music on my PC. There's around 900 MB of music I do not hear anymore, so I'll have to cleanup and delete some of them.

 

[Buoysel]

Randomness to post here but my laptop hard drive got totally owned and destroyed the other day.. haha thank god I was able to transfer all the files over to the new hard drive though. The dude in the tech lab was shocked with how many gigs of music I had bought from iTunes, it took forever to transfer all of it...

Speaking of which, how many gigs of music is on your computers folks?

3.56 GB Which is way more than I though I had, I guess all that ripping in HQ was taking up more space than I though. lmao

 

[TheAppleFreak]

According to iTunes on Snow Leopard, I have approximately 10 GB of music in my library, and 30 GB of everything overall. However, due to the way that Snow Leopard counts the file sizes, it's really more like I have around 9.2 GB of music.

I only listen to about 4.2 GB of that music, which equates to approximately 675 songs in my main listening playlist.

 

[Dawn]

I've got somewhere between 5 and 6 gigs of music |3

 

[Charizard★]

44 GB of music about 10,681 songs from me :3

 

[Gerri Shin]

I've got about 4GB of music, about 90GB of movies and almost 400GB of Tv shows.

 

[Archer]

I've got about 4GB of music, about 90GB of movies and almost 400GB of Tv shows.

I love how iTunes does that.

910 items, 2.6 days, 6GB. A lot of my stuff is 320kb/s or VBRs in that range, which is why it takes up a lot more space than a lot of people's of similar quantity.

It's movies/TV shows that add up quickly. My iPhone is getting too full for my liking.

 

[Charizard★]

I'm going to be getting a Seagate 2TB External Hard Drive and I was wondering before I buy it, people have said it was good as long as you don't install the software. And my question is pretty plain and simple, might sound stupid but oh well: How does it exactly work? You plug it into your computer and you transfer files? Do you always have to keep it connected to your computer? Or can you just plug it in whenever you need to take file(s) out of it or put them in? Also, what does the software do actually? Does it really do anything for the external HD?

I'm just cautious since this is my first time buying an external HD, and I tried to look thru as many reviews as I could, and this seemed to be better than all the other types of external HD's and one of the cheaper ones.