Crossover or not?
 

I'm new to home networking. I was planning on buying this switch from NewEgg, but I'll also need some cheapo cat5 for it. My question is, would the cable need to be crossover cable, or regular? I am assuming regular, but just wanna double check.

What's essentially the difference between a hub and a switch, btw?

I have a DSL modem connected to a four-port router/switch combo that has four ports on it. None of the cable is crossover and everything works fine. The super basic explanation of a switch is "a faster hub." It does everything that a hub does, only much faster (it allows multiple users to copy/send data at once through multiple data streams).

-Lasereth

If you are going to connect a PC straight to another PC/Notebook, then you will need a crossover cable.

a hub is a very "dumb" device; a switch has some intelligence.

Data packets from the sending PC are broadcast through all ports of a hub hoping to find the target on one of them.

A switch on the other hand only sends data out to its intended target, resulting in a much more efficient network.

Switches, unlike hubs, can simultaneously send and receive data packets, which is known as "full-duplex" communication.

There are two internationally ratified standards for the pinout of an ethernet patch cable, 586A and 586B. A cable that's A on one end and B on the other is a crossover, used for directly connecting two PCs without a hub/switch.

here are those pinouts and some additional information: http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/ne...ble/cable5.htm

You can use a regular CAT5 cable to make a crossover.

1. Straight Patch - This is the regular cable.
2. Crossover Patch – If need to buy it, you have to ask specifically for it.

The plugs (RJ-45) at either end can be connected as:

PC - Straight Cable- - HUB

Pin 1 TX+ -------------- Pin 1 RX+
Pin 2 TX- -------------- Pin 2 RX-
Pin 3 RX+ ------------- Pin 3 TX+
Pin 6 RX- ------------- Pin 6 TX-

Or

PC - CrossOver Cable - PC

Pin 1 TX+ -------------- Pin 3 RX+
Pin 2 TX- -------------- Pin 6 RX-
Pin 3 RX+ ------------- Pin 1 TX+
Pin 6 RX- -------------- Pin 2 TX-

I believe those pinouts are Green, Green/White, Orange and Orange/White. (i think)

Aside from that the price may be, the ports show 5x 10/100. So if I'm reading that right, only the uplink port would be gigabit. That would just be a waste.

either cables would be ok, but would suggest straight though (says autodetects uplink, thus senses if it needs to be crossed

looks better than linksys too

bendsley, it is a 10/100 switch nothing fancy, no gigabit anywhere, just a cheap switch....

in short buy it and buy cables and plug it all in, hardware part of network done....

Are you going to be sharing a broadband Internet connection? If so, I'd bite the bullet and get a router. It'll dish out IP addresses for your machines so really the only thing you'd need to worry about for file and printer sharing is making sure all the machines are in the same workgroup.

It's a dual speed hub/switch. It supports both 10 and 100 mbit networks. Useful if you have an old computer with an old ethernet card.