Network Guru help needed...

nooshinjohn

Trying to get my McIntosh MS750 connected to the World Wide Web. It has no wireless cabability, and my audio room is set up for wireless. It has an RJ-45 Ethernet port on the back.

I have tried range extenders and cannot get it to connect through them. I suppose I could stop being lazy and relocate the internet drop to my audio room, but until then, any solutions come to mind?

The audio room is on a different circuit from the living room that houses the internet connections.

txcoastal1

Ethernet bridge of your existing wifi

Nightfall

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003KPBRRW/ref=mp_s_a_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1503361665&sr=8-22&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=wifi+to+ethernet+adapter&dpPl=1&dpID=41uFL6sLwiL&ref=plSrch

I use this. This is just for example, I don't know why the price is so ridiculous. I paid $20 for it a few years ago and I'm sure you can find something similar for cheap.

Nightfall

Looks like this would work.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004UAKCS6/ref=psdcmw_13983791_t1_B003KPBRRW

DaveHo

Another choice: https://amazon.com/gp/product/B00NR2VMNC/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

This also functions as a wi-fi range extender which could be useful.

nooshinjohn

Tried one by asus... would not connect to my attt uverse

crashb4

Bite the bullet and drop a network cable to the room. A direct connection to your router or switch will give much better service to your equipment and you will not experience drop out. I tried the easy WiFi rout and was not satisfied with the results at all. A few hours work and all is good. FWIW.

mikeyb128

How about Ethernet over power? Used them before and they work great, no drop outs or slow speeds. Doesn't cost much either.

Nightfall

mikeyb128 wrote: »

How about Ethernet over power? Used them before and they work great, no drop outs or slow speeds. Doesn't cost much either.

I've always wondered how sending Network traffic over your power lines would affect the sound quality of your system plugged into the same power.

crashb4

I have no experience with EOP. Just seems illogical to send network traffic with 60hz power. Maybe someone with experience will chime in and teach us all.

mikeyb128

I Have no idea, I used mine for music in my old house, and it worked flawless. I didn't notice any loss in performance, But I didn't do a comparison, my system is at an entirely different level now than it was before.

nooshinjohn

I tried EOP first, but because my audio room is separate from the other circuits in the house, no luck..

nooshinjohn

crashb4 wrote: »

Bite the bullet and drop a network cable to the room. A direct connection to your router or switch will give much better service to your equipment and you will not experience drop out. I tried the easy WiFi rout and was not satisfied with the results at all. A few hours work and all is good. FWIW.

We will be switching ISP's in the next month or so. I will let the new install team wire things up the right way.

crashb4

You won't regret it. Reliability is worth the cost and hassle.

polrbehr

Say what you want about Monoprice, but I ordered enough stuff from them to run
network cabling to every room in my house. Picked up a 250' spool of plain old Cat5e,
a bag of 100 connectors (with those rubber boot things), a 1/2 dozen each of wall plates and surface mounting jacks, an 8 port hub, and a plug-in modular cable tester, all for about $90 shipped. I had bought a Klein Tools crimp/strip tool from HomeD that does telephone & Ethernet connectors, so add another $30 to that total.
But I figure I pay good money for my Optimum Ultra 200, might as well get the maximum benefit of those download speeds...

crashb4

I will be hard wiring my house as well. Wireless is ok for surfing and Mobil devices, but for streaming video and audio, I'll take a wired connection every time.

polrbehr

crashb4 wrote: »

I will be hard wiring my house as well. Wireless is ok for surfing and Mobil devices, but for streaming video and audio, I'll take a wired connection every time.

Agreed, there is no substitute for a wired connection, especially when DIY is an option. IMO every device that can be direct connected via Ethernet is one less thing that can bog down your wireless network; I found that I had a stronger signal on my SB Duet wireless music server once I took about 6 devices out of the Wifi loop.

@nooshinjohn, I am by no means a Network Guru either, though I do have years of wiring electrical cables on my resume. I got a lot of info/help from 2 Polkies in my search for network knowledge.

Nightfall

What wireless routers are you guys using that you're experiencing dropped connections? The one you're renting from your ISP, live in a brick house, or do you live in an apartment complex with saturated wireless channels? Spend the money on buying your own cable modem and a $150+ wireless router, you'll save money in the end by not renting and you'll have better equipment.

I've never had an issue with wifi losing its connection. I can pull down 40-50mbps over the Internet on my wifi, more than enough for any resolution of audio and a little latency or a few dropped packets aren't going to matter for audio either. Of course that shoots up to 200-250 with very little latency on wired, which is definitely better for online gaming.

Obviously running Cat5/6 is going to be better, I'm certainly not saying it's not.

mikeyb128

Nightfall wrote: »

What wireless routers are you guys using that you're experiencing dropped connections? The one you're renting from your ISP, live in a brick house, or do you live in an apartment complex with saturated wireless channels? Spend the money on buying your own cable modem and a $150+ wireless router, you'll save money in the end by not renting and you'll have better equipment.

I've never had an issue with wifi losing its connection. I can pull down 40-50mbps over the Internet on my wifi, more than enough for any resolution of audio and a little latency or a few dropped packets aren't going to matter for audio either. Of course that shoots up to 200-250 with very little latency on wired, which is definitely better for online gaming.

Obviously running Cat5/6 is going to be better, I'm certainly not saying it's not.

Have to agree, I use a wireless router, dedicated to streaming in my basement, I don't think I've had one drop out, and its lightning fast. Ive been using an apple airport express without issues.

polrbehr

For myself, I never had an issue with dropped connections, I was just thinking that wired > wireless. I was using the router that Optimum gave me (free of charge, they wanted more people having Optimum Wifi hotspots), but we had a lot of devices in the house and I figured Ethernet was more reliable. Even after I removed about 10 things from the wireless equation, we still have about 12-15 iDevices/laptops/game systems that use wifi, so I ended up getting a better router anyway

If running cables through your house isn't practical, by all means spend the coin on the best router you can.

Msabot1

crashb4 wrote: »

Bite the bullet and drop a network cable to the room. A direct connection to your router or switch will give much better service to your equipment and you will not experience drop out. I tried the easy WiFi rout and was not satisfied with the results at all. A few hours work and all is good. FWIW.

No substitute for going with this route...provided that running drop cable to your location is practical....Relocating equipment to your audio room might be a big plus also...Set it up as an MDF...

crashb4

Nightfall wrote: »

What wireless routers are you guys using that you're experiencing dropped connections? The one you're renting from your ISP, live in a brick house, or do you live in an apartment complex with saturated wireless channels?

I use an ASUS RT-AC3200 Tri-Band Wireless Gigabit Router. Outstanding coverage in a 3400 sg ft, 2 story with basement. Drops are few and far between, but one is a distraction. I have a wife and three kids. Tablets, smart phones, PCs, laptops, gaming systems and smart TVs all competing for bandwidth. A cable drop to the basement listening room took a few hours and cost approximately $20.00. Chump change for the piece of mind of a stable and uninterrupted connection. Just my preference. I also use a hard wired connection to my Kodi box. No buffering even streaming 1080P from the internet.

txcoastal1

At LSAF 2016 there are no hardwired connections in the hotel except the conference rooms. I had 2 show rooms for the event, 1-in conference room 1st floor, 1-hotel room 3rd floor. I set up the main wifi router on the first floor and the second wifi router set to bridge mode on the 3rd floor with a switch.

This gave me the ethernet ports I needed on the 3rd floor and for 3-days I streamed from the NAS on the 1st floor along with Tidal etc....not a single drop out while streaming

crashb4

I'm not saying that wireless is useless. I'm saying that under my circumstances, wired connections are preferable for certain devices. I can not outrun bandwidth no matter who is doing what on the wireless bands.

nooshinjohn

Ok... it is now hard wired to Ethernet and still there is no connectivity. Tha McIntosh is looking for something called DHCP from the router. I don't know what the hell that even is...

crashb4

It is a protocol for handing ip addresses automatically by the router. The mac is looking to connect to your local network. Your router must have dhcp set to on in the settings. The router will take care of the rest.

nooshinjohn

How do you set it to do that?

crashb4

There is a logon for your router. An admin page is available at the home address for it. The router's documentation will provide the address as well as login information.

nooshinjohn

Ok... where do I find that info to log into the router?

crashb4

You can search for the info via google by model number, or the manual for the router

nooshinjohn

Got in and it is connected, but openglobe.net ports 1755, 8080 do not respond. The only port that gets ok is 443. The server needs to see those three ports to communicate.