Crossover or straight CAT5 2

[Yardyy]

Hi Dudes,

I have several switches in our network, and several hubs..

Because this is a network that i inherited, and my lack of knowledge of switches and hubs, i want to know - do i need a crossover cable or straight cat5 cable linking all the swithces together, so all users have access to the fileserver which is in one room. The hubs have uplinks from the switch as well, is that so that they can expand the ports used. We have about six hub and one switch per cabinet per department.

Thanks in advance. Regards

Yardyy

 

[jimbopalmer]

in general, computers use one pair to transmit and another pair to receive, so the hub/switch needs to receive on the oppsite pair as a computer and transmit on the opposite pair. this allows all cable to be straight through.

sadly, if we connect computers to computers or hubs/switches to hubs/switchs we are talking transmit to transmit and receive to receive, so we need a cross over cable, which we never have and which we cannot easily detect when we re use it as straight through

( I used to buy all my cross overs in hot pink, so I was not confused, the engineers thought that looked way cool and bought all their network cables in hot pink, sigh)

nice hub/switches have either a dual fnction port or an uplink port, which acts as a computer not a hub, and you can use straight through able from uplink to another hub/switch. even better, 1000baseT seems to detect and correct poirity issues, so we never need gig crossovers! I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[Yardyy]

Does that mean then that i can connect my computer to the uplink port using a straight cable, and that would give me access to the whole network.

Or if i connect a crossover cable to any of the other ports that would give me the same effect. Regards

Yardyy

 

[dragonlogic]

In my experiance, always use a crossover cable between hubs and switches. Straight thru cables are for connections between your computer and hub (or switch). The uplink port is a port that is internally crossed over. So you can use a straight thru cable to connect from an uplink port on a hub to a regular port on another hub or switch.

hope that helps

 

[jimbopalmer]

Yardyy for computer to hub, always use the straight through cables on regular ports. The uplink port is 'just' for hub to hub connections, to avoid a crossover cable, I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[Yardyy]

You guys are cool man, thanks for the info, what would i do with out this tek-tips, once again thanks...

I will pass any information that i know on as well so that i can help others the way that you have helped me..

once again thanks Regards

Yardyy

 

[ChrisAC]

Hot pink network cables ....... how cool is that! I bought some clear "see-thru" CAT5 from

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk

and made some cross overs from that for when I'm out testing routers, and that looks pretty bitching.

Hot pink sure would make the comms room look nice though!

;-)

Chris.
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Chris Andrew, CCNA
chris@iproute.co.uk
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