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Laptop Card Won't work in wall jack

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metsey

Programmer
Mar 2, 2001
49
US
I have a cable modem and pc in one room. I also have a laptop. I ran CAT 5e with RJ45 terminator on the modem end and a wall jack on the other end in my Rec room.

Here is the scenario:

I can connect my desktop pc to the wall jack and it works.

I can connect my Dell laptop THROUGH MY DOCKING STATION to the wall jack and it works.

HOWEVER, when I try to plug in the laptop through the Network card in its expansion slot (without Dock Station)
the network icon always says "network card unplugged" and it DOES NOT CONNECT. IN ADDITION, if I just use the same patch cable (2 RJ45 terminators) to plug the laptop DIRECTLY to the cable modem (not through the cable with wall jack) IT WORKS so I know the network card and patch cable are functional.

IT seems to be centered at the wall jack.

Any suggestions?

Any



 
Assuming that you are using the same patch cable to connect either the desktop PC, the docking station, or the laptop direct, it suggests that perhaps the wall socket might be attenuating the signal. Perhaps the network card in your desktop has more gain than the one in your laptop, and maybe the docking station is amplifying the signal which it is passing to the laptop.

Try another patch cable and recheck ALL connections to wall socket and RJ45 at the other end. An instrument capable of measuring network bandwidth and attenuation would give you a precise answer here.

ROGER - GØAOZ.
 
Hi,

Is it possible that the TX & RX are swapped over in one of the cables.

Normally connecting 2 PCs together you'd go through a hub and use straight through cables. Without a hub the cables have to be crossed.

Is it possible that the docking station and modem expect the cables to be crossed/or straight through and they're not and that thenetwork card has the opposite expectations.
Just a thought.

Regards
 
Hmmm, sound to me like:

Your pinout from the router to the wall jack is not 568A or B
standard. Your nic in the PC is 10 MB and your docking station
is at 10 MB. When you try your pc card in the wall jack it's trying
to TX/RX at 100, it gets return packets, but no data. If you can hard set your
pc nic card to 10, try it. If you connect, you know you need to
check your pinout on your extention from the router to the rec room.

By the way, ethernet is point to point. You can get away with walljacks
at 10 MB, but at 100, you really should go from point to point.

Dennis
 
What Model of Cable Modem, Router,Nic,and Hub do you have? Do all of them have 10/100 capability?

And just a thought.... it might be that your Desktop nic and the docking station nic auto-corrects for incorrect pinouts.
(568a vs. 568b) And your Laptop nic does not.

--When Neo was info-jacked for 10 hours they called him a machine, I laughed and called him newbie....
 
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