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[Frank Bax]

At 12:45 PM 12/10/04, Ed Hurst wrote:
> > A crossover cable would skip the switch. Would that help?
>
>Don't even know what that is. I tried connecting directly between the
>two NICs and got even worse results. I also tried three different brands
>of ether cards (someone sent me a mixed 10-pack).


If you look *very* closely inside the plastic connectors on your network 
wires you should see one these two colour patterns: T568A or T568B - these 
are the two "standards" for CAT5 cable.  When a cable uses T568A at one end 
and T568B at the other end, then it is a "crossover" cable which means 1x6 
and 2x3 send/receive wires are crossed - send at one end is connected to 
receive at the other, instead of "straight through" cable - which is used 
in most cases.

Some novice cable makers think that as long as both ends of the cable use 
the same scheme, they have made a "straight-though" cable and everything 
should be fine.  These people find out that there is a reason for 
standards.  I've seen cases where this setup causes a 100Mbit/sec network 
actually only runs at 10Mbit/sec.  Apparently the twisted pairs are then 
twisted in such a way as to reduce interference when the right wire is used 
for the right purpose (as determinied by pinouts at the end).

Frank