Having a Switch in front of Router?

[unimatrixzer0]

Just got Verizon FiOS the other day so now I'm trying to consolidate the network equipment in my wiring panel. Took out my cable modem and router and replaced it with Verizon's Router. Was just wondering if there would be any benefit to keeping my gigabit switch in front of the Verizon router and plugging everything into that vs the Verizon Router directly?

No one really transfers files between computers at home except my brother linking up his laptop to the xbox wirelessly sometimes. Then again the xbox 360 is only 10/100 right?

2 - Desktops

1 - Laptop

1 - xbox 360

1 - Printer

So basically everything besides the printer goes through the switch first just to access the internet before going to 1 port on the Verizon Router.

Any point in keeping the switch or should I just plug everything directly into the router? I guess I'm just wondering if the router would take a performance hit with everything going directly to it.

[+BudMan MVC]

I you do not mind the drop in speed to 100 between you desktops, sure pull it out -- it sure is not slowing anything down. No there is not going to be any performance hit plugging into the switch on the router.

Don't know about you - but I could NEVER, EVER, EVER go back to 100mbit -- its like watching paint dry to transfer anything ;)

I just had to copy over about 70 gig worth of music and pictures back to a machine I redid for a buddy.. It was PAINFUL having to copy it over USB to my machine the first time.. Putting it back was much better (over gig) ;)

[unimatrixzer0]

Thanks for the suggestion. Although now I have a different reason to remove the switch.

Since I got FiOS that keeps happening for some reason. To fix it I have to cmd -> ipconfig /release then /renew. But it seems to only be a temp fix since it just comes back at random.

Dunno if its because of the FiOS supplied router or maybe my network equipment. =/

[+BudMan MVC]

Well if your switch was in place with your old router, highly unlikely its the cause. But sure I guess there could some very weird compatibility issue between the router and your switch that would cause issues with your dhcp renew?? How do you feel that /release /renew is fixing the issue? Are you getting a differen IP.. Did you loose your IP?

If your loosing your lease I highly doubt its random -- look at ipconfig /all once you do a renew -- what is the time of the dhcp lease?? If the client can not renew once that expires then sure your going to have connectivity issues ;)

If its a dhcp issue -- either run a different dhcp server on your network, or setup static IPs on the devices, etc. Or as you suggested pull out the switch and see if that fixes the problem.

I see your running vista, and a new router -- vista has a known issue with some dhcp servers (routers).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

Windows Vista cannot obtain an IP address from certain routers or from certain non-Microsoft DHCP servers

You could also try disable IPv6 -- some routers have issues with that, and could be causing you problems looking for a IPv6 dhcp, etc. If your not using it, I would suggest you disable it. Google disable IPv6 vista