Network Hardware Setup Help

So a few weeks ago, Netgear sent out a survey asking if folks would like to test a new gaming router and switch. I filled it out, thinking I’m a small fry and will never be chosen.

Well, these arrived today.

IMAGE(https://forum-cdn.quartertothree.com/uploads/default/original/3X/1/1/111cd89da51b168294dce7d479c3a689785d380b.jpg)

And I have no idea what to do with them. All I have currently is my cable modem/router from Spectrum.

Any advice on how to set these up would be amazing. Thank you.

Spectrum needs to be told to put your cable modem on bridge mode, then you can use the router as your gateway device by plugging that into the modem and doing whatever it's setup instructions call for. That's usually connecting to its network, going to the router's fixed address, and configuring it through your web browser. The switch just looks like an ethernet switch to me, letting you wire more things into your wires network, maybe faster somehow?

Bridge mode, got it. Thank you!

Ok, the way that works is that the "gaming router" allows you to share a single IP across multiple devices. You get one IP from your ISP (unless something unusual is going on), and then the router does both firewalling and network address translation (NAT) to let your entire network access the Internet pretty much transparently. Your existing modem will be doing that for you now, which is why you need to put it into bridge mode.... at that point, it will just translate packets from the incoming cable to standard Ethernet, and then this new router will take over its other functions from there.

Most routers have four "internal" ports, which can take computers or whatever directly. If that's not enough ports, that's what the second switch is for. I can't tell from your picture, but that's *probably* an 8-port switch. You can put it anywhere in your house you like, and then run an Ethernet cable to one of the internal switch ports on the router. Suddenly, any device that plugs into the secondary switch will act just like it's plugged directly into the router. You lose two ports this way (for the two ends of the connecting cable), so you end up with 4 ports, plus 8 ports, minus 2 ports: 10 ports available. You can add more switches if you need even more ports.

Oh that helps, thank you. I plan to try and connect the thing this weekend. Yay!