Personal Update: Network In Action

Today, well tonight, has been the first time I've put any stress onto my new network infrastructure.  Going form a wireless N solution to a true wired 1Gbps solution has been like night and day, and of course, unlike the office network this is 1Gbps where I know exactly what is going on.

So, I've had my old Pentium 4 based server, done a stream of 30mbps from it, whilst pulling 50mbps down from EA online (the Star Wars battlefront Beta), and I've also been streaming HD video from YouTube.

It has been an extremely lush experience.

Playing Payday 2 I've also been enjoying that, with the added stability of the network,

Unfortunately, my workstation needs a lot of work, and I think this weekend it's going to have to be a down time, I need to clean the PC, I've got a fan squeaking, and I've also got one of the mechanical HDD's making a real noise.

I am thinking of sneaking an order for a £30 120GB SSD from Amazon into the mix, and the same next month, to sort something better out for my Stream storage drive, unfortunately, I have two sets of car tax to buy, so this maybe nothing more than a pipe dream.

Personal Update: Networking the House

About six months ago, I told you all I'd bought some really nice shielded cat 5 cable, and I planned to install this between the router in the living room and the office, well today I've finally taken that leap, drilling through victorian ceiling and soot, missing twentieth century power lines and an awkwardly placed floor joist....

My ping which was round 83ms TTL is now 7ms, I have my full download speed from my supplier, and indeed I am.  But it was a bloody messy process.

I have sacrificed a few ethernet plugs to the gods getting the wire down and through, the first wire I pushed through just disappeared, I think along the back of the victorian cornice in the living room; one day I may find it.

My eventual trick was to use a 20mm polymer pipe to encase the wire, and also to guide it down the wall in the lower room, this resulted in the wire being out of sight (least colourwise) against the light coloured walls.