How can I improve my home network?

Is your broadband modem actually doing routing and NAT as well, or is it just a modem that provides a connection for another router?

I ask because your original setup has the broadband modem connected to the WRT54G, which makes it look like the WRT54G is your border device, and the modem is just a modem. If that's the case, you won't be able to change that aspect of it, so your network will still have to be broadband modem -> WRT -> bigger switch.

Other than that, you should be able to saturate a 100MBit network pretty easily with CIFS or NFS traffic, so you should be seeing more like 10-12MB/sec transfers rather than the 5-6MB/sec transfer you're seeing right now. Your wireless connections will get much worse than that - I'd expect around 3-4MB/sec sustained if you're using 802.11G.

If you get a gige switch for the middle of your network, you'll do better than 100Mbit, but don't expect to get close to saturating gige. It's definitely possible, but you're just pretty unlikely to see it happen.

You'd also do well by replacing any onboard networking cards with dedicated PCI cards. For example the Intel 1000GT which goes for about € 30 around here (Holland). With two of these cards in my two primary computers, connected through a proper gigabit-switch, I can manage an average throughput of 110 MB/sec.

But if you put this network card in all of your computers, you'll definitely need a hefty Cisco switch.

Good luck!

First off, 3 dumb switches that are daisy chained is just a bad bad bad setup. You are asking for trouble and lots and lots of packet collisions. Having a central managed switch is FAR better solution and I highly recommend it. Never daisy chain anything but routers that are configured for just that (by way of static routes and such) or you'll just have problems when transferring large files across the network. Most networks are fine with 10/100 solutions. If need be, you can spend the money on a large gigabit switch, but they can be pricey. If you just need to pull and push files off of one computer from all the others, get a switch that has a gigabit port and run the server off the gigabit port with a gigabit network adapter, the rest of the machines only need to be 10/100 from the switch (this is a far cheaper solution if you are just in need of a file server). You should have: Modem(most likely in bridged mode) ---> Router(all dhcp/nat should be done here) ---> Switch(managed or unmanaged, but managed is best) ---> computers and access points (no dhcp/NAT on these access points) When choosing a switch, choose one with enough ports to handle the number of computers you will have connected.

Note that if you are planning on having a performance network, going with brands such as dlink, linksys, netgear, airlink and so on will probably not suffice. They work well for a basic home solution, but they are not by any means performance product lines. Look to brands like cisco, sonicwall, samsung, edgewater, netopia and adtran for higher grade routing solutions.

Also note: when you are testing your download and upload speeds, you'll only get accurate results if you are testing on the same network the speed test is on, so test from your ISPs website as it is probably located side by side with the DNS servers and will provide the best results.

Since you are considering changing network cable, it would be smart to go with Category 5e or even Category 6 cable. Category 5 cables are considered obsolete at the moment and you'll have problems with them should you ever consider upgrading network hardware to gigabit speeds.

Well, for one, you have a gigabit switch behind a 10/100 switch. That means anything coming into the gigabit switch is going to be max 100mbps. except the three nodes you have connected to it. Make the gigabit switch the center of your network.