My home network is more complicated than most. Two devices on it are a pair of Netgear switches. The GS608v2 connects to my PC, printer and spurs off to the Powerline kit and a second switch in the living room, a GS605v3. Having noticed that the NAS performance is a bit iffy and a few reports from the alerting system that the NAS drops out a could of times a day, I naturally ignored the problem.
Eventually of course, I decided to fix it.
Plug the NAS into the GS608v2 and packet loss is quite high from the PC on the same switch. Plug the NAS into the downstream switch via a different cable and the packet loss goes away. Mmm. Must be the cable.
Plug the new cable into the GS608v2 and the packet loss has gone.
How did the cable suddenly start causing a problem? Well new new cable is Cat5E. The old one is unmarked. Could just be that there is an interference source nearby that wasn’t there before. Could be that we have mice. Could be something else.
Task now is to leave the temporary cable dangling and watch for packet loss over the next few days.
Makes you realise just what a struggle it must be for the average home user now that there are so many Ethernet connected devices at home.
Then again, maybe it’s just me that has their TV plugged into the LAN?
