Hard Wiring More than one ethernet cable

[Tunbridge149]

My main sky Q box is next to my router and despite that the wi-fi connection keeps getting lost / forgotten.  When you turn on sky it tells me I’m not connected to the internet, if I go into settings and then the wifi settings it eventually re-connects but its annoying and can take a couple of minutes to resolve.  Resetting the router can also fix the problem but that also takes a number of minutes to reboot and I don’t want to do this every time.

It is a Virgin Media router.  Virgin tells me there is nothing wrong with it and to be fair all my other devices never have an issue.

The obviously solution is to hardwire it with an ethernet cable and that does resolve the problem and gives a super fast reliable connection to the sky box.

So whats the issue?  Well I have an additional sky Q mini box in an outbuilding at the bottom of my garden.  Its out of range of the wifi network in the house and while I do have a WAP in there hard wired to the router in the house the sky box won’t work through it as its not sky broadband.  So when sky installed this they ran a new ethernet cable to the bottom of my garden and connected the sky Q mini box that way, hence the ethernet port on the back of the main sky box is used by that.

So at the moment I have to keep swapping between hard wiring the sky box in my house for reliable connection and the connection to the box at the bottom of my garden.

Is there a way round this?  Can I install an ethernet hub to allow two connections into my main box, one form the router and one from the box at the end of the garden.

How do Sky do this if you have more than one Sky Q mini box that needs hard wiring?

[nigea99]

hi @Tunbridge149 

If you don't have enough ports on the hub then you should be able to connect both the mini & the main box to a simple  switch and then connect the switch to the router & this is likely to be the most stable.

BTW I believe boxes can be 'too close' to the router to maintain stable connections

[Skull+Treaty]

@Tunbridge149 

As @nigea99  has mentioned, an unmanaged switch like this should work. Have it at the back of the Sky Q box, Ethernet cable from the router into one of the ports. Then from that, run a cable into the Q box and connect the cable from the garden into it also. 

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/networking/network-routers-and-switches/network-...

[Tunbridge149]

Thanks guys.

I'll invest in a network switch and try that out.

The main sky box and the router are right next to each other so that could well be part of the problem with the staility of the connection but there aren't a lot of other options for positioning.

I'll give the network switch a go and let you know if that fixes it.

Thanks again.

[bob1234]

@Tunbridge149Yes as suggested an Ethernet Switch is the way to go BUT go to a known manufacturer AND buy a cheap UNMANAGED switch as the managed ones often give problems with Q.

[Tunbridge149]

UPDATE:

Managed to get a TP Link Ethernet Switch, a friend had one spare.  Its unmanaged as recommended.

I've installed it and it woks a treat.  I've had no issues with either the main box or the mini box, both now have a good stable connection.  Much better than when I was relying on the wi-fi.

Thanks for the help.