CAT5: Cross or straight?
 

I've recently 'aquired' many old network cables from work - we got a new system in and there was a load of old cables lying around. Most have "patch" written on them, but does that mean they are cross or straight cables?

Cheers in advance!

patch is straight

My question:
whats the difference?

edit: diff between straight and crossover

An answer within four minutes! Superb! Thanks mr.montreal!

Moooo!

redarrow, er, how to explain. I'll let someone else taclke that question, as I'm not very good at explaining things!

Cross over cables are for PC to PC connections only.

Patch cables (or straight thrus) are for PC to Hub (or switch or router or any other device).

You can tell them apart by comparing the ends, if the colours on both ends are in the same order it's straight.

cross cable is used to connect computers together

straight cable is used to connect other network devices. (like your linksys router)


ps. got beat to it by mr.spock :D

There are 8 wires in a network cable. Of those 8 cables, only 4 are used in network communication. Pins 1, 2, 3 and 6 are active. So in a straight cable the pinout on both ends is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 however on a crossover cable, the pinout on one end is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and the other is 3,6,1,4,5,2,7,8.


Edited because it's been awhile since I made a crossover cable.

Crossover cables are also used to connect hubs, routers, or switches to one another - but the most common home use is PC <-> PC.

hrdwareguy did a good job explaining the wire ordering in straight/crossover cables - and that's how you tell them apart.

The newer routers/hubs can autodetect and use either crossover or straight cables. But PC to PC will work only if you use a crossover cable

exactly what I need to do to tie my switch into my router for my latest addition to the clan (a P200). Just need to finally buy the crossover cable and decide what version of *nix (leaning toward debian,slackware, or freebsd) will replace win98 on there.

True for Fast Ethernet (100Mbps). Not true for Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps). There's other layer 2 network protocols (i.e. same layer as Ethernet) that may require 4 pairs.

Of course, I'm just nitpicking. :)

How much would a standard crossover cable run? I'm trying to LAN with my brother but our lousy router is being a pain so I wanted to try and connect the two PCs to each other directly.

Probably around fifty cents for a foot, the last one I bought was 30 feet and cost me $14 (at best buy I think).