Adding a switch to an hpna/wireless network

[rw120555]

Here is an esoteric question: My home network is a combo of ethernet, HPNA, and Wireless. Generally, it works well; but it is slow if I am trying to transfer huge files from an hpna machine to another machine, e.g. a laptop. (At least it is a lot slower than it is with the machines that have ethernet connections to the router.)

Could I get a switch, and connect different machines to it, and if so would everything be one big happy network? That is, one machine might have an hpna card, and I would connect it and a laptop to the switch with ethernet cable. Or, I might have a couple of machines that have hpna cards and also connect them with a switch. File transfers would then go at the higher speeds possible with ethernet.

Also, my WAP has a sub-optimal location in my house, by the router. Could I take an HPNA machine that happens to be in another location, connect it and the WAP to a switch, and the WAP would work?

Basically, I am wondering if I can just plug stuff in and have it work, without having to mess with any software. The machines are all WinXP in case that matters. Thanks. RW

EDIT: All machines in question also have ethernet jacks.

 

[Workin']

I think the answer you are looking for is not possible. If you are connecting through an HPNA card that has to use the HPNA protocol and speed. To connect an HPNA-equipped device to an ethernet switch you would have to use a device called a bridge, and even then the HPNA device would not work at ethernet speed. And so on...

 

[rw120555]

Thanks Workin. I think I could buy a bridge (e.g. the Netgear PE102) and a switch and that might work. But, the bridge costs $100+, so I'm trying to see if there is a way around that. I'm wondering if the computer itself can act like a bridge in this case. And if it can't, that might knock out the WAP idea, but what about high speed file sharing between the machines that are directly connected to the switch? I know that anything that goes through hpna will be relatively slow, but I'm basically trying to partially bypass hpna by connecting some machines with a switch. Maybe I'll just buy a switch and try it out! RW

 

[Workin']

EDIT: All machines in question also have ethernet jacks.

Then you should be able to plug them into an ethernet switch with no problems.

 

[rw120555]

Workin, thanks again for the advice. It took a little fiddling around, But I think I have everything working the way I want.

* For the desktop with both hpna and ethernet -- I ran the winxp networking wizard and it created a bridge between the hpna and ethernet networks. So, I don't need a separate hpna/ethernet bridge.

* I then plugged the desktop and a laptop into the switch. Not only did the two machines see each other ok, the laptop also saw the rest of the network and had internet access. And, as hoped, file transfers between the two machines are far faster. With ethernet hookups, a 119 MB file transferred in 17 seconds. Using HPNA, it took 3 minutes 20 seconds. And using wireless, I got tired of waiting, but it was on track for 5 to 7 minutes.

* Finally, I plugged the WAP into the switch, and it works too. I had a lot of trouble with this at first, but disabling WEP, and then re-enabling it once everything was working, did the trick.

So, i think I've got what I want -- much faster file transfers between the laptop and desktop, and a better placement of the WAP. I have to leave the desktop on to use the WAP, but I leave it on anyway. If HPNA/ethernet bridge prices go down, I might buy one, but this works ok for now.

 

[rw120555]

I found this in the Winxp help. It is a little too late to help me, but now I at least know why what I did works:

Using a mixed network environment When planning your home or small office network, you might want to use a combination of Ethernet, wireless, and home phoneline network adapter (HPNA). For example, you might have two computers in adjoining rooms that are connected using Ethernet adapters and a network hub. If you have other computers in other areas of your home or small office, you can connect those computers to the network using a home phoneline network adapter (HPNA) or wireless network adapter.

In this example, there are two computers in adjoining rooms that are connected using Ethernet network adapters, cables, and a hub. One of these computers is running either Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional. There is a third computer in your child's bedroom, and a fourth computer in the den. The bedroom and den computers each have a home phoneline network adapter (HPNA) installed and are on a network together. To connect the two HPNA computers with the Ethernet computers, install a home phoneline network adapter (HPNA) in the Ethernet computer that is running Windows XP. If your laptop computer has a wireless network adapter, you can join it to the network as well by installing a wireless network adapter in one other computer on the network that is running Windows XP.

In a mixed network, also called a multi-segment network, one or more computers have multiple network adapters. Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition have network bridging, which allows the computers and devices on each of the network segments to communicate with each other. Without network bridging, the computers connected using Ethernet can only talk to each other, and the same for computers using HPNA or wireless. Network bridging makes each of these network segments transparent and appear as one continuous network.

 

[Workin']

Cool, thanks for posting this rw120555. I deal with this stuff nearly every day and I didn't know WinXP did bridging. This is something valuable to know, and another reason why AT is a great place to hang out.

 

[rw120555]

Glad you found it helpful, Workin. I think this bridging thing has some potential. One of the knocks against hpna is the cost or non-existence of cards once you get past the basics, e.g. a print server. But, you could, say, set up a complete ethernet network in your basement, put a cheapie hpna card in one machine to connect to your network upstairs (which also has hpna somewhere), and then everything is all linked.

Same thing with a wireless setup -- instead of buying wireless cards for a bunch of machines, just set up one machine as a bridge and connect the rest via a switch and ethernet. Probably much cheaper if the physical layout permits it.

It does require that the bridge machine stay on, in order for the basement to have access to the internet and to the machines upstairs; but even if it is off, the basement machines can still communicate with themselves. If you want to avoid using a bridge machine, I'm guessing you could buy a single hardware bridge (e.g. the Netgear PE102 hpna/ethernet bridge, or a WAP that can act as a bridge), hook it up to a switch along with your other basement machines, and all would be well. For that matter, I have some old machines with ethernet cards just sitting on a shelf in my basement; I could break those out and use them as the bridges if I want to be cheap about it.

Just wish I'd had some of these ideas 6 months ago -- the purchase of a router and a switch has made 3 or 4 of the hpna cards I purchased last year no longer necessary.