Pair of hardware questions....

[Faqa]

Yo. Having replaced my computer with one constructed of much awesomeness(thanks to all who helped in my topic on the matter), I found two annoyances that want solving....

1 - My printer. Apparantly, it's old enough to have only an LPT connection in it, and my mobo is not blessed with an LPT port. Converters are apparantly none-existant, though I'd appreciate any help if they do exist.

If not, I'll have to buy a new printer(JUST a printer, not the whole fax/copy machine/whatever all-in-one combo). Thing should be relatively short and squat, and otherwise, I'm not picky, so long as it works.

Is a laser printer worth investing in, for the moment?

2 - My router. A crappy little one supplied by my ISP. Probably should've realized it was trouble the moment it got hotter than the firey pits of Hades five minutes after activation.

I'd wondered if the problem was in my previous comp, turned out to not be. While Bittorrent runs fine, weirdly enough(I can get up to 70-something kb/s on a popular torrent....), the internet itself is whiny. Occasionally, it will take a dive into a pool of molasses, with nothing loading this century, no matter how much network traffic I have running at the time. Once I restart the router, it typically goes back to semi-normal.

Question is, is this an ISP problem or a router one?

If a router one, what should I look for in a router? I see a lot of cheap models, no idea if any of them are worth it.


Answers? Anyone? Much appreciated, thanks.

[DarkSilver]

I seem to recall seeing a LPT - USB convertor awhile back...forget where at though...I think Newegg....

sounds like a router problem, I know sometimes it happens on the work linksys routers, only being fixed with a router restart.

[Starglider]

Yo. Having replaced my computer with one constructed of much awesomeness(thanks to all who helped in my topic on the matter), I found two annoyances that want solving....

1 - My printer. Apparantly, it's old enough to have only an LPT connection in it, and my mobo is not blessed with an LPT port. Converters are apparantly none-existant, though I'd appreciate any help if they do exist.

If it's a desktop, fit a parallel-port PCI card or PCI-X card. Much neater than a USB adapter and probably cheaper. Google/froogle 'parallel port PCI card' for the best prices.

Is a laser printer worth investing in, for the moment?

If you don't need colour, definitely. If you do need colour, maybe. I love my colour laser, it's fast, great quality, consumables last much longer than an inkjet and the pages don't come out still wet. But they're still fairly expensive to buy.

Question is, is this an ISP problem or a router one?

Almost certainly router if resetting the router fixes it. I've seen this problem on many cheap routers; the signal-to-noise ratio progressively degrades until the bandwidth stabilises at some hopelessly low figure. Resetting the router reinitialises the connection at a decent bandwidth until it progressively throttles down again. Assuming this is DSL check your phone wiring. Corroded contacts, cheap wiring, hanging umpteen extensions off the master socket can all degrade S/N to horrible levels. Ideally you should fit the microfilter right where the phone line comes into the house, and have all the extension wiring splitting off after the microfilter, not hanging the filter off an extension socket. I fixed the Internet at my parent's house (who are on the edge of ADSL coverage) this way; using a wireless router meant that the microfilter could be placed at the master socket before the extension wiring and all the computers in the house could use it without having to string cat5.

If a router one, what should I look for in a router? I see a lot of cheap models, no idea if any of them are worth it.

Check reviews. Linksys routers are generally solid enough though not the best value for money.

[Faqa]

Almost certainly router if resetting the router fixes it. I've seen this problem on many cheap routers; the signal-to-noise ratio progressively degrades until the bandwidth stabilises at some hopelessly low figure. Resetting the router reinitialises the connection at a decent bandwidth until it progressively throttles down again. Assuming this is DSL check your phone wiring. Corroded contacts, cheap wiring, hanging umpteen extensions off the master socket can all degrade S/N to horrible levels. Ideally you should fit the microfilter right where the phone line comes into the house, and have all the extension wiring splitting off after the microfilter, not hanging the filter off an extension socket. I fixed the Internet at my parent's house (who are on the edge of ADSL coverage) this way; using a wireless router meant that the microfilter could be placed at the master socket before the extension wiring and all the computers in the house could use it without having to string cat5.

I fail more than I probably should at network tech, but....

the only thing we have here that could be called a microfilter(ISP calls it a filter, anyway... ) is on ALL the phone lines, else we get static on them. So yeah, not getting that. I live in an apartment building, so any 'master' socket is probably stuck somewhere in communal utilities. Yay.

cat5? Wuh?

Though my dad's laptop uses a wireless connection, I'm still wired to the router, since it's more convenient, being right next to me and all.

[Ace Pace]

CAT5 being the normal Ethernet cable used to link up PCs, doofus!

Since we're in Israel and Linksys isn't that popular here, try and find Some D-Link stuff.
Bug, as much as I hate to say it, has some routers you can look into, Office Depot as well(should have),KSP.co.il, while having the shittest customer service known to mankind, has a decent selection, reletive to israel standard.

[Starglider]

I live in an apartment building, so any 'master' socket is probably stuck somewhere in communal utilities.

US telecoms terminology differs slightly, but the master socket is the one provided by the phone company where their line terminates, and unless you have some sort of PBX going on there will be one in your apartment (or rather, each apartment in your block will have its own private one). That said, if you're not at all familiar with this stuff then it's probably not a good idea to start messing about with your phone wiring.

the only thing we have here that could be called a microfilter(ISP calls it a filter, anyway... ) is on ALL the phone lines, else we get static on them.

That's standard practice here too for people who either don't know what they're doing or don't care about signal quality. Fitting a single filter before the junction box that all the extension lines/sockets branch off from (which is usually the same as or right next to the master socket) will usually deliver better S/N and hence more DSL bandwidth (if you're not already at the ISP-mandated cap) because extension wiring is a major source of noise, particularly if it's old and corroded.

cat5? Wuh?

Category 5 cable was the standard LAN cable for the last decade or so. Technically most new cable is cat5e to support gigabit networking, but cable monkeys everywhere are still in the habit of saying 'cat-five'. General use of higher categories will probably start ramping up soon due to 10gig-Ethernet-over-copper finally being standardised. Note that 100 megabit Ethernet is still more than adequate for the average home LAN (it's about 50 times faster than the average broadband connection), though gigabit is only marginally more expensive these days and can help with backups and media streaming.

Though my dad's laptop uses a wireless connection, I'm still wired to the router, since it's more convenient, being right next to me and all.

That's what I like to see, wireless is only allowable for laptops, how are we supposed to achieve the ideal 'borg cube' aesthetic in our homes with all this bluetooth and wi-fi crap making it harder to justify to the significant other?

[ANGELUS]

1 - My printer. Apparantly, it's old enough to have only an LPT connection in it, and my mobo is not blessed with an LPT port. Converters are apparantly none-existant, though I'd appreciate any help if they do exist.

I believe this is what you are looking for.

[Netko]

Starglider pretty much nailed this. My only recommendation would be that if you do need colour printing to consider getting a b/w laser and one of those el-cheapo disposable (refill is more expensive then the printer) inkjets to use when you need to print colour rather then just an inkjet. Or if your budget can handle it, a colour laser (they've become quite a bit cheaper). Laser is just that much better for text - I wouldn't use an inkjet as my sole printer even if it was given to me for free.