Cable

[Hardass]

Hooking 5 port hub to my 4 port linksys router what cable do I need? Standard cat5?

[DaGooch]

You may require a cross over cable. Looks exactly like the regular Cat 5 patch cable but the wiring configuration is different at the ends.

[Hardass]

Answer is straight cable according to my internet guy.

[TheDude]

Documentation for router and hub should state whether your router and/or hub has built in crossover or whether you need crossover cable. Is the hub also a linksys? If so I think it may be built in to the uplink connection. I am at work so I don't have the instructions with me.

[IFMU]

From all different hubs/routers/switches I have never seen one that required a crossover cable, just straight threw cat5 cable.
Ive gone through about 4 or 5 different ones, most varying in brand and not a one took crossover.
By my understanding, the only time you need a crossover is when going directly from 1 PC to another. I could be wrong, heh, its happened before! :D LoL

[TheDude]

IFMU sounds right to me..I think the crossover is built in. You are correct about the direct cable connection requiring crossover cable for sure.

[Hardass]

Yes gents it,s a straight cable. Working fine. Now I have to find me another kvm switch.

[JAWS]

Originally posted by IFMU
By my understanding, the only time you need a crossover is when going directly from 1 PC to another. I could be wrong, heh, its happened before! :D LoL

You’re exactly right. We just made a bunch of crossovers at work. It's a pain in the ass to make, but they come in handy.

[Charles Wirth]

General cable information for everyone.

I doubt this will prevent the next job site from having incorrectly wired cables in the walls but maybe you guys will know to do it right in the future. An incorrectly made cable will work but you will lose ~50% or more signal let alone this cable would fail at 1000T.

Looking at the clear connector with clip side down the left most pin slot in #1

For 10/100 operation pins 1-2-3-6 are used. the rest are dead.

Cross over cable is pins 1 goes to 3 and 2 to 6 now reverse 3 goes to 1 and 6 goes to 2

Cat 5 (10-BaseT) all pins straight thru. minimal cross talk across wires @ 50 ohm Impedace. 26AWG not acceptable for 1000T use unless you wire it to cat 6 spec and keep distance short.

Cat 5e 100-BaseT Pins 1-2-3-6 should be paired for minimal cross talk across pins but you can run a straight thru cable with some loss in speed @ 75 ohm impedance. 24~26AWG. this cable will fail at 1000T

Cat 6 Pins 1-2-3-6-4-5-7-8 must be connected in that order. straight thru cable will not work for 1000T aka Gigabit and if you do no use correct pairs the cable will not work @ 100 ohm impedance. 24AWG

Using any 2 wire pairs for cat 5 and cat 5e has been common but these cables will not work for gigabit and they may be reducing the full bandwidth of the network.

Ok lets talk about lawsuits and incorrect wiring of umteen-thousand locations where they put all pins straight thru in your walls. Hopefully you guys are still with me on this. there are 4 pairs of wires for a total of 8 pins. when you run straight thru pairs 2 and 3 become split and totally defeats the concept of twisted pair where Pins 2 and 6 must remain twisted to gether to reduce cross talk and quality of signal. A certifited cable contractor will install correctly and test the cables with an Ideal or Fluke cable tester.

So your network at work kinda sucks and no one knows why...

[Smizack]

The only reason you should need crossover is if you're going comp to comp.Some toshiba cable modems use crossover also.

[DaGooch]

Many older hubs and switches without uplink ports required them in the old days but most of you guys don't remember those days. ;) The old days of cabling were fun and I still have my MicroTest Pentascanner and older Next certification units. Those fun days of suspended ceilings, making raceways and crawling through service hatches. Yes, follow Fugger's recommendations on cabling and make sure you get a printout of the line quality of every line that was installed from a certified installer. Those LED continuity testers are pretty much useless for 100T and above and requires a full scanner with an injector on the other end.

[sjohnson]

CLimbing around in the ceilings then testing with TDR's and BERT's :) :) Those were the days, though I assume both testers are still in use.

[Smizack]

Originally posted by DaGoochMeister
Many older hubs and switches without uplink ports required them in the old days but most of you guys don't remember those days. ;) The old days of cabling were fun and I still have my MicroTest Pentascanner and older Next certification units. Those fun days of suspended ceilings, making raceways and crawling through service hatches. Yes, follow Fugger's recommendations on cabling and make sure you get a printout of the line quality of every line that was installed from a certified installer. Those LED continuity testers are pretty much useless for 100T and above and requires a full scanner with an injector on the other end.

Easy grandpa, it ain't the 30's anymore.:D :stick: :D

[DaGooch]

Originally posted by Smizack


Easy grandpa, it ain't the 30's anymore.:D :stick: :D

Try running a program with 2000 cards with punch outs. :(

[sjohnson]

Have fun without a sorter, putting the 2000 cards back in order after the operator "accidentally" drops them :(

[TheDude]

Kinda on same topic here...FYI I bought a Linkskey 8 port 10/100 switch from Newegg last week for $29...well made metal case...great performance...thought that was a good deal.

[Smizack]

Originally posted by DaGoochMeister


Try running a program with 2000 cards with punch outs. :(

Sounds like a presidential election!:D

[Tannin]

Just a little bit more general information. Most smaller scale hubs and switches have traditionally had one extra port. In an 8-port hub, for example, you get the normal ports 1 to 8, plus a ninth one, which has the wires crossed. So, to hook to another hub/switch, you need to either use a normal straight through cable from the X-over port (#9) into (say) standard port 1 on the second hub, or use a X-over cable to go between (say) port 8 and port 1. (Or ports 2 and 6 - whichever ones you like.)

So you either use the X-over cable or you use one of the the X-over ports, never both. (I presume that you could also use both X-over ports and an X-over cable to wind up with the equivalent arrangement, though why anyone would want to do it this way I can't imagine.)

The rule is: to link two hubs, you need one X-over - be it cable or port. Two X-overs cancel each other out. So, if you ever happen to need one more connection to your switch because you have an extra machine to add and you have run out of standard straight-through cables, you can just use an X-over cable instead, and plug it into the X-over port. 2 * X-over = straight through.

Note that, in the usual arrangement, the switch (or hub) has 8 normal ports and one X-over port, but you can only use 8 ports in total. If you use the X-over port you can't use port #8 and vice-versa.

But I came across a neat thing earlier this week: I bought another switch (not for me, for a customer) and it didn't have the X-over port, just the standard 8. At first I though this was a bit ordinary - hey, it was a cheap switch, what did I expect - but on reading the manual, I discovered that the switch will auto-sense the cable type and adjust all by itself. Neat! So you can just plug in any cables you like, any way you like and the switch looks after all the details for you.

Has anyone else seen these?

[TheDude]

Tannin....

My post above about the linkskey switch refers to such a switch..note that it is linskey not linksys. Eight ports..all the same...all auto sensing plug and play. Just unplug the old one and plug in the new while network is up and there you are done.:D

[JBELL]

good info - but still is there any gain using cat 6 comp to cable modem over cat5e or cat5 even?

[Charles Wirth]

Well if the cable was made "straight thru" and pins 4 and 6 were unpaired you would get less of a signal on the cable.

New cat5e cables are made to cat6 spec.

[Smizack]

Originally posted by JBELL
good info - but still is there any gain using cat 6 comp to cable modem over cat5e or cat5 even?

Not that I know of.