Wireless Projector control - Help Please

[300EVIL]

Does the QM-2000.NET seem slower running through the access point? I am purchasing a .net box shortly and want to use an 802.11b Netgear access point. I ask because I'm running wireless from my desktop through a router to my laptop with docking station and it's really a pain in the ass when programming shows because of the speed. Loading shows takes about double the time it takes directly, but no big deal.

Also, Do i need to run a crossover cable if I'm running the .NET box directly from the computer and not through a hub?
Thanks!
Adam

[Stuka]

Does the QM-2000.NET seem slower running through the access point? I am purchasing a .net box shortly and want to use an 802.11b Netgear access point. I ask because I'm running wireless from my desktop through a router to my laptop with docking station and it's really a pain in the ass when programming shows because of the speed. Loading shows takes about double the time it takes directly, but no big deal.

Also, Do i need to run a crossover cable if I'm running the .NET box directly from the computer and not through a hub?
Thanks!
Adam

Don't know about wireless, but I'm pretty sure any show uploads using the .NET box will take a bit longer than if the QM card were in the computer (Buffo commented on a noticeable difference when we were loading shows in SELEM)

As far as cables - standard CAT5 patch cables work fine. The ethernet port on the .NET box is autosensing and works great!!

Randy

[stanwax]

Does the QM-2000.NET seem slower running through the access point? I am purchasing a .net box shortly and want to use an 802.11b Netgear access point. I ask because I'm running wireless from my desktop through a router to my laptop with docking station and it's really a pain in the ass when programming shows because of the speed. Loading shows takes about double the time it takes directly, but no big deal.


Also, Do i need to run a crossover cable if I'm running the .NET box directly from the computer and not through a hub?
Thanks!
Adam

Adam
The data transfer will be slower through wireless as the speed of standard ethernet is 100mbps whereas 802.11b wireless is 56kbps max - So in perfect conditions wireless is aprox half the speed of wired. The wireless system will throttle back the speed to maintain good data integrity as the distance increases and signal weakens and this will obviously affect the data throughput further.
As for x-over cable I think that the .net - like most modern network devices will auto detect the connection so you should be able to use a standard ethernet lead.

Rob

[300EVIL]

Hey Randy and Rob,
Thanks for the explanation guys. Hopefully the Ethernet will be fast enough to program shows without delays.
Thanks Again!
Adam

[loopee]

Rob
Sorry, but I’ve got to correct you on your statement

“The data transfer will be slower through wireless as the speed of standard Ethernet is 100mbps whereas 802.11b wireless is 56kbps max - So in perfect conditions wireless is approximately half the speed of wired.”

Wireless using 802.11b has a connection rate of 11Mbps but the true throughput speed is really only 6Mbps in ideal conditions due to the half duplex nature of the radios. 56Kbps is dial up modem speed.

Wireless using 802.11a or 802.11g has a connected rate of 54Mbps with a true throughput of around 26Mbps and the new 802.11n wireless has a theoretical connected rate of 300 - 600Mbps depending on hardware with a true throughput of 120 – 240Mbps
802.11abg devices all work at half duplex, that is can only transmit in one direction at a one time, 802.11n can do full duplex as it has dual radios, (proper 802.11n has two radios per band but actually listen on three antennas and transmits on two)

A bit of advice for those people out there looking at using the new 802.11n, make sure that the devices you are looking at purchasing has the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED logo with “abg” and “n” on it. Reason being is that the cheap vendors, Dlink, Netgear, etc are pushing 802.11n on the 2.4Ghz spectrum only and is it is recommended practices not to do this as there are only 3 non-overlapping channels in that band (depending on country) where as the 5Ghz band has 23 (again depending on country)

The non certified 802.11n hardware is particularly nasty as one of the thing that an 802.11n access point does is to use channel bonding (joining two channels together) to get aggregated bandwidth, when this is done on the 2.4Ghz band it means that there is only one non-overlapping channel left in the vicinity of the device, this in turn makes in hard for neighbouring devices to find a clear channel with little interference on it

As a wireless engineer I’m seeing a lot of the domestic non certified grade “n” devices become popular as sales people are pushing the cheap 802.11n access points with no understanding of the technology.

I have a friend that has recently had no end of problems with the wireless in his house, i.e. really bad connection rates, continuous dropouts, inability to re-connect, etc, etc. I visited him to have a look and using some wireless analysers and spectrums tools and discovered that he had two neighbours with 2.4 GHz 802.11n devices consuming the RF space and leaving no clear channels for his 802.11g access point to select. The only thing you can do in this situation is to get a proper 802.1n AP and start using the 5 GHz band.

As for the speed issue with the QM2000.net, I would dare say it would be related to the bus speed when connected to the PCI slot in a computer, this would be significantly faster than a 100Mbps connection through a network card. For example, some testing I did a long time ago with gig network cards in some early Pentium 4 PC’s the best throughput we could get was around 700Mbps and was been limited by the bus speed of the PCI slot. These days you should be able to get a gig through the PCI slot

Jem
Some basic networking info for you (and others)
The 192.168.1.X range is a class C network meaning that it has a network mask of 255.255.255.0, with this mask it means that the first three octets of the address is fixed and the last octet has a range of 254 usable addresses – 192.168.1.1 to 254. Typically a routing device would be set to either 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254 as it is the edge of the network (this is just good practice as in a larger network it makes it easier to find)

The default gateway is the address of the router that is used to “get access out” of the network, this router would know the next hop of the neighbouring network i.e. your ISP for the internet.

If you network is purely private and does not access the internet the default gateway does not need to be set, however if it does need access to the internet it will need to be set.

For reference there are three private network ranges:
10.0.0.1 - 10.254.254.254 – 255.0.0.0 = 16,777,214 usable hosts (PC, Printer, ETC)
172.16.0.1 - 172.31.254.254 – 255.255.0.0 = 1,048,574 usable hosts
192.168.0.1 - 192.168.254.254 – 255.255.255.0 = 254 usable hosts

These can be subnetted further but I’m not going to detail that here, way to complex!

Depending on the wireless device you’re configuring, i.e. wireless built into a router or an actual access point only device, will determine whether the IP address matters.

An access point only device is typically a layer 2 device meaning that it will forward traffic from any network address and any IP address configured is for management only of the device itself, however when the device is a router with wireless built it is dependent on the device whether or not the address is important, most routers have the wireless attached to the LAN segment of the router where some are actually a routed segment that can be connected to the WAN or LAN therefore the address may or may not be important. For a router I would recommend running through the quick setup option and setting the address to end in either .1 or .254

Troy

[dave]

As for x-over cable I think that the .net - like most modern network devices will auto detect the connection so you should be able to use a standard Ethernet lead.

Rob

I don't think they auto detect... Never tried it actually, but each of the qm2000.nets we have purchased all came with a x-over cable, suggesting they don't auto detect...

[jud]

Does the QM-2000.NET seem slower running through the access point? I am purchasing a .net box shortly and want to use an 802.11b Netgear access point. I ask because I'm running wireless from my desktop through a router to my laptop with docking station and it's really a pain in the ass when programming shows because of the speed. Loading shows takes about double the time it takes directly, but no big deal.

Also, Do i need to run a crossover cable if I'm running the .NET box directly from the computer and not through a hub?
Thanks!
Adam

Hello Adam-

From what I see, it takes something less than twice as long to load shows to the QM-2000 across a network as opposed to a direct pci connection. Introducing a wireless link did not seem to increase things all that much (at least for me).

I have a QM-2000.net setup, but ended up putting the card into a mini ITX system to decrease load times. Like one of these:

http://www.itxdepot.com/xcart/home.php?cat=44048

(You can still use the card across the network if you want using LD2000_Network.exe program.) I normally run the ITX headless and use VNC to control it. The footprint is a bit smaller than the .net, but it is taller.

Regarding the cross over- I do not think you will need one. I normally run the .net directly into my laptop with a straight through cable.

Have fun! -Jud

[dar303]

loopee: Thank you for your very detailed post, it's always nice when people put in a lot of work in their forum posts! You never know when you might need that knowledge!

[JeroenVDV]

Crossover-cable is only needed if the computer AND the QM don't have an auto-sensing network-port!

Most modern laptops/computers have an auto-sensing netwerkport so even if the QM is not auto-sensing (and it is not auto-sensing, is my experience), it will work with a normal patch-cable with most computers without a problem!

[Stuka]

Interesting -

I've successfully connected my QM2000.net directly to my 4-year old laptop, and to a standard port on my 4-year old router with just standard CAT5 patch cables.

Works great!!