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connecting two switches

i recently decided to upgrade my network by replacing the 2 10mbps hubs to 2 10/100 fast ethernet switches. My network spands to my neighbor's house and his other neighbor's house(3 houses, all next to each other). The network was fully operational with the 2 hubs. Now we have replaced the two hubs with two switches, the problem is that computers from one switch cannot see the computers from the other switch. All the leds light up properly including the led corresponding with the cable connecting both switches together. The distance of the cable between the two switches is no more than 50meters. The cable connecting the two switches is a straight through type cable. According to the features list of the switch, all ports are auto MDI/X. I try putting one end into port one (being the uplink) and other end in another port other than port one, and it still doesn't work.One thing that i found odd was, instead of pluggin one end of the cable into the switch i decided to put it into my laptop, checking to see if it would work, theoritically shouldn't it work?, i thought it would, but it didn't. When i connect the two switches using a 1meter long cable, it seems to connect fine, which i find odd, because it's not as if the 50meter wire is messed, because it works fine when i connect it to a hub. I've tried everything, im all out of ideas.

thanks in advance.

Reply to
Avi
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That's probably a wrong assumption. Cables that work at 10Mbps but don't at 100 are an almost-sure sign of split pairs.

Wires 1 & 2 and 3 & 6 need to be twisted pairs; one of them must be a solid color, and the other striped with the same color. Say if 1 is orange, then 2 must be striped white/orange.

If they are not like that, you have 'split pairs' and the result is exactly what you're seeing now.

Regards,

Marco.

Reply to
M.C. van den Bovenkamp

Make sure all your cables are CAT 5e or CAT 6 twisted pair cables.

Reply to
Joe Rodriguez

Why? You don't need CAT5E unless you're running gigabit and you don't need CAT6 for _anything_.

And CAT 9000 doesn't do you any good if it's got split pairs.

Reply to
J. Clarke

You may still want that CAT6 to run the 10GBASE-CX4 in your data center.

As far as CAT5E goes, CAT5E has been around for so long that anything that's not called 5E and is relative recently installed is normally just a sloppy, carelessly installed CAT5E components that, slammed together, fail to pass CAT5E test. By saying you do not need CAT5E you are implying "you need CAT3" as CAT5 (without E) is not easy to get these days. Again, anything you get without the "E" these days is just poor quality parts. True, 100BASE-TX will work on CAT3 on short distances, but only to the point where he starts caring about the actual throughput. If all he needs is browsing Internet, he'll do just fine. If he's going to print large graphics on a network printer across that link or sync a relatively large database several times a day, he'll be sorry he took that advice.

Absolutely agree, it does not take 50 meters of cable as OP put it to mess it up. Can easily be messed up within that half inch that's inside the plug ;-)

Reply to
Dmitri(Cabling-Design.com

Nope. 10GBASE-CX4 uses quad twinax Infiniband cable, not UTP.

No, that's called a rework. If the spec is for CAT5E then it gets installed to pass 5E or the cable contractor doesn't get paid. Or if he's the unscrupulous sort he'll use CAT3 components and tell you it's CAT7.

No, you need CAT5 or better. 5 without the E may be hard to get, but that doesn't mean that people don't have CAT5 cables on hand or that they don't have CAT5 cabling installed. Every cable in the world was not installed yesterday you know.

So what? Nobody said anything about CAT3.

The point you miss is that there is a lot of installed CAT5 that was never retested for 5E. There is no reason to replace that cabling with 5E for

100baseTX, which your statement implied was the case. There's actually no reason to replace it for gigabit unless it fails the scan for 5E.
Reply to
J. Clarke

k i did the twist like u said here:

Wires 1 & 2 and 3 & 6 need to be twisted pairs; one of them must be a solid color, and the other striped with the same color. Say if 1 is orange, then 2 must be striped white/orange.

however it still doesn't work on the switch, it lights up properly, but i can't communicate from one switch to the other, but when i connect the twisted wire back to the hub it works fine again.

Reply to
Avi

It depends on the model. Some switches have an uplink jack, some don't. Some have a dip switch next to one jack to select straight or xover cable.

Reply to
Al Dykes

I'm not certain but don't you need a cross over cable to connect two switches together?

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Reply to
kangman

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Reply to
kangman

As always, the definitive answer is "it depends". Some require crossover cables, some have dual connectors for one port that are labelled "uplink", some have switches to select normal or uplink, some do auto MIDX.

If the port isn't labeled uplink or switchable, then a crossover cable isn't the wrong answer. Mostly I'd say you have to try it, but have a crossover cable on hand...

Reply to
William P. N. Smith

Not necessarily. Many switches have an uplink port and gigabit switches don't need an uplink port or crossover.

Reply to
James Knott

Many switches have an uplink port, which does the crossover. Some have a second connector for the crossover. Some have a switch and some autoconfigure. Gigabit switches figure it out automagically.

Reply to
James Knott

Unless you don't.

As several people said, you may have an uplink port or you may have a crossover switch or you may have a switch that can autodetect and adapt for pairing.

Autodetection of pairing is part of the gigabit standard and any gigabit switch that lacks this capability is broken.

However (a) you need a crossover cable to connect two hubs just as you do two switches (unless there an uplink port or crossover switch) and (b) most hubs sold today are actually switches.

Reply to
J. Clarke

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