Question 1

I want to put a 2nd Desktop PC in a room that is hardwired with only one CAT-5 cable wall outlet.  Is this what I need to do teh job?

Accepted Answer

This will do the job nicely.

Notes: That being said, if it is truly CAT5, that cable will only support wire speeds up to 100Mbps. Hence a gigabit switch has a lot of "wasted" bandwidth. But since the price is probably under $25, it's not really an issue. If the wiring is actually CAT5e, which will be printed on the wire, that will support gigabit speeds. And then finally, it also depends on the network interface on the end point device: whether that supports fast ethernet (100 Mbps) or gigabit speeds. But 100 Mbps is fine for most home applications.

One final suggestion: looking at the pictures of the switch (I don't have it here - I ordered it for a customer) you'll notice that on the back side the leftmost port is separated from the other four and is probably your uplink port. Meaning that you should plug the ethernet cable from the wall socket into that port and then plug the 2 computers/printers into any of the 4 rightmost ports.

HTH. Good luck.

Question 2

was just wondering if anyone knows. Is there a default ip address kind of like a router to view the devices settings and such?

Accepted Answer

Hubs and un-managed switches don't provide an interface to the network, therefore there is no need for the DHCP Server to assign them an IP address and no access to settings.  Think of them as special cables.  They don't provide routing functions.  They simply make the right internal wire connections to provide physical network connectivity with attached devices.  Hubs split the bandwidth across the ports evenly.  Switches split the bandwidth across the ports according to need.
It does have a MAC address however, a unique ID assigned to all network hardware devices, which could be helpful in diagnostics.

Question 3

Can you link multiple together if you want more than 5 ports in the future?

Accepted Answer

Ya, it's a switch, u can daisy chain them.  It is possible to run into collisions and stuff, you will have to see..   PS don't turn on the access point feature, it bricked mine.

Question 4

Was wondering if this device has a default ip address or the like to login and check/configure settings. anyone?

Accepted Answer

I didn't see one. But, this is an unmanaged switch, so I wouldn't expect anything like that. You plug it in, you turn it on, it does Ethernet.

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