yesterday i had a lan party, and it was a lot of fun. we had a 4-port router and 3 of my friends came so we had a nice little game going. anyways, i want to be able to have the option of having more people, and ive been looking at routers, switches, and hubs. i am biased against hubs because in terms of network speed ive heard they dont do well. routers are great but expensive. and from what ive heard switches dont assign ip addys. so what i want to know is if its possible to have a 4 port router with a 4-16 port switch attached to it(and how i would properly attach it) so i can support a lot of people at minimal cost. switches are generally pretty cheap so i would prefer to use them if possible.

so any help on getting the most people in a lan for the cheapest price would be very much appreciated. thanks in advance

*bump* anyone?

i originally had a 5 port switch connected to a 2 port router and i could still game and share files. the only reason i took out the switch and got a router with more ports is because it didn't assign ip addresses so i couldn't use my dsl. don't know if that's an answer you wanted but good luck

Yes, it's possible. All you have to do is run a normal (straight-thru) cable from a port on the router to the uplink port on the switch. You can also run a crossover cable to any normal port on the switch. It does the same thing. All computers will get network access, and an IP address. Filesharing will work.

In the grand scheme of things, like at a lan party, I don't think yoy're going to notice that much of a difference between a switch and a hub. But, since they are around the same price, it doesn't make that much sense to get a hub.