Net geek

I spent 3 hours setting up the home network tonight, after going out and buying a new server and a couple of socket-ethernet links (which put the network through the house cable). Basically we'd been having a few drop-outs and problems of late and they all seemed to stem from when the PS3 was online. Everytime it was online it was always god-awful slow and there were always updates to download, none of them tiny/minor.

After trying tons of settings, I felt enough was enough and no more was I putting up with the mountain of whinging from either Jack or Trina when the net wouldn't connect. There was a bad experience downloading the Spore demo for Harry the other day, then Vista updates, then DirectX.. it took 4hrs to get it working - and only then after some more faffing and forum reading... I'm really glad I went Mac!

Anyway, I replaced my N-router with a G-Router and have one of the PS3's hooked up via the socket-ethernet thing, which works surprisingly well with hardly any configuration. The only real problem I had (which I spent over an hour on) was getting the router to dish out my net connection, so I had to update the firmware on the router, took a while to find a working link before haphazardly updating it and crossing my fingers. It worked, thank god.

After setting the PS3 up first, I was stunned at the slick speed of the PSN store, which had previously really (and I mean REALLY) crawled along. So far so good. After having both of the PS3's on (the other was doing another system update) and a couple of Mac's and the AppleTV's it was apparent that the PS3 was hogging the network again, cue some more router settings modifications. I'm hopeful that it will all work ok now, but I think the main problem is that there's just too many devices on my connection, all pulling/upping too much stuff - at last count there were 2 apple tv's, 2 mac laptops, 2 pc laptops, 1 pc upstairs, my imac, 2 ps3's, 2 360's, the Wii and that's not including the various DS's and PSP's which rarely log on. It's looking like a 2nd broadband connection soon, if the promised 50mbit connection from Virgin doesn't come in soon.

I'll see how long it is before anyone moans about disconnections... (crosses fingers).