Incidentally, re using your laptop as a cable tester, you may not need anything special. Does your laptop's ethernet port have an LED in it that lights up when the line is hot? If so, that's exactly the same hardware that's in the standalone tester.
If not... Well, try and pull a DHCP connection or route through a gateway to another machine, especially if the laptop's network config already works on this network though known-good cables. That'll tell you soon enough if the cable's any good.
|