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Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

Feel free to post any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this article. We will do our best to answer any questions you may have, and look forward to your feedback on this article!

Original Article - http://www.littlewhitedog.com/reviews_other_00009.asp

Fido@littlewhitedog.com

Stray Dog Joined: 19 Dec 2000 Posts: 2

I made the cable (great article). I tested it using one of those fancy CAT5 testers and it said everything was fine. But I can't get either computer to see the other one. I've tried with commercial crossover cables and either computers still can't see each other so i know it's not the cable. I know both NIC cards work as both computers have been connected to other networks. I'm using netBUI and TCP/IP as the protocols. IPs are 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 and tried 255.255.255.0 and 255.255.255.252 as the subnets but still no success !!!!!!!

Big Dog Joined: 20 Oct 2000 Posts: 3689 Location: USA

open a DOS prompt on each computer and ping the computer's own address

it sounds like something isn't working

Blame is for people who need a reason to be pissed off !
-Brain

Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2000 8:02 pm Post subject:

Make sure your NIC's are set to Auto under "link speed / Duplex" too.

- Spot
Spot@LittleWhiteDog.com

"AssPunching is not allowed!"

Stray Dog Joined: 19 Dec 2000 Posts: 2

turns out the two 3com c595 don't work with each other. I changed out one card to a 3com c309 and it worked. thanks for your help guys.

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

Important! Make sure that cable you make is more than 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) in length. According to the IEE 802.3 spec this is the correct length of a crossover cable to avoid signals bleeding thru from the XMIT or RECV pairs...

Fido@littlewhitedog.com

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2001 7:20 pm Post subject:

As a side note to the minimum cable length, the maximum cable lenght for braided wire CAT5 cable is 25feet and for solid core wire it is 100meters big difference. Many of the store bought crossover cables use braided wire and NOT solid core so if you buy a patch cord or a crossover cable and it is beyond 25 feet then it might have problems!

Rover
"...She went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone,
when she bent over Rover took over and gave her a bone of her own!"

Stray Dog Joined: 20 Feb 2001 Posts: 1

Do crossover cables work for connecting gigabit copper ports? I'm trying to connect a Cisco 3524 Switch with 1000BaseT copper GBIC to a 3COM 4900 Switch (which has 12 "AutoMDIX" 100/1000 ports). I don't have the 3COM equipment yet, but I don't want to be short a cable when it gets here. I can't find much on connecting Gigabit Copper ports together on the search engines and I don't know what they mean by AutoMDIX. Does just mean that the crossover is built in as described in your article, or does it mean it will detect whether to crossover or not? Thanks for any help!
-Bill

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

Quote:

Do crossover cables work for connecting gigabit copper ports? I'm trying to connect a Cisco 3524 Switch with 1000BaseT copper GBIC to a 3COM 4900 Switch (which has 12 "AutoMDIX" 100/1000 ports). I don't have the 3COM equipment yet, but I don't want to be short a cable when it gets here. I can't find much on connecting Gigabit Copper ports together on the search engines and I don't know what they mean by AutoMDIX. Does just mean that the crossover is built in as described in your article, or does it mean it will detect whether to crossover or not? Thanks for any help!

A standard Category 5 cable should work just fine, and since it / they support AutoMDIX - that means the cable you use doesn't need to be a crossover cable. Standard Category 5 UTP with RJ-45 connectors should work just fine.

Fido@littlewhitedog.com

Stray Dog Joined: 15 Apr 2001 Posts: 1

We read your article on how to make a cross over cable, but we didn't really have all the tools, so we had to 'improvise' a little..

All we had were patch cables and a utility knife...

We spliced the wires in the middle, and didn't have any tape to tape it up with, so we used some spare address labels I had lying around.

This is the ghetto way to make a crossover cable.. and it DOES work!

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2001 3:11 am Post subject:

LOL! Hey what works.... Works. Big Smile

[8D]

- Spot
Spot@LittleWhiteDog.com

"AssPunching is not allowed!"

Big Dog Joined: 20 Oct 2000 Posts: 3689 Location: USA

way to go !

never let a little thing like not having the right tools set you back [ Wink

]

i used to actually use labels on both ends of my cross-over cables so that i could tell them apart from everything else without too much thought

I'd just take the label and split it in half, and then wrap the entire half around whichever end

Stray Dog Joined: 01 May 2001 Posts: 1 Location: Australia

Hi, I am networking two computers at home and have a strange problem. I currently have a crossover cable (approx 15M long) and everthing works fine. I am trying to install this cable properly at home, by running a cable through the wall, and placing sockets at each end. I have made this a straight through cable. At one socket I place a normal patch lead to one computer and at the other socket I place a crossover cable to goto the other computer. For some reason my network just will not work this way. The total length of cable would be about 25M including patch and crossover leads. Is this too long? Am I getting too much loss through these connectors? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Please reply to my email address or icq. Thanks in advance. Troy.

Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2001 3:32 pm Post subject:

Superb article.

I've got a little double-RJ45-socket thing. I can only assume it's used to extend CAT5 cables. I opened it up and rewired it to be crossovers. Instead of carrying a crossover cable I just carry this little block and connect two ordinary CAT5 cables to it.

My £0.02,
Demon
---=== ===---
Seal clubbing - otariidae discoteca

Stray Dog Joined: 23 Jan 2001 Posts: 7 Location: USA

Demon,
That's a GREAT idea. I bet I have a dozen of those sitting around that I just throw at people. Now I can put it to good use. Why didn't I think of that?