Suggestion for FAQ

Posted by: Captain_Chaos

Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 04:19

I have a suggestion for the networking and home connections FAQ. Where it talks about connecting the empeg to your PC with a crossover Ethernet cable, I would recommend buying a normal cable plus a crossover adapter. That way, you can reuse the cable if you later decide to buy a hub.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 09:58

Interesting suggestion, but...

a) Don't want to muddy the waters,

b) I clearly state that crossover connection is not recommended in the first place, and

c) Crossover adapters are even more rare (hard to find) than crossover cables.
Posted by: loren

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 10:14

I didn't even know they existed. =]
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 10:27

They are easy to make if you have a crimper and a punchdown tool. Just get a RJ45 jack and a RJ45 plug and about 2 inches of wire and wire up each side correctly.
Posted by: peter

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 10:44

They are easy to make if you have a crimper and a punchdown tool. Just get a RJ45 jack and a RJ45 plug and about 2 inches of wire and wire up each side correctly.
Surely anyone who knows how to do that will get as far as "crossover cable required" and work the rest out for themselves? If they were even reading a FAQ on networking in the first place?

Peter
Posted by: Captain_Chaos

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 13:28

Oh well, just a random thought I had while browsing the FAQ...
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 14:03

Surely anyone who knows how to do that will get as far as "crossover cable required" and work the rest out for themselves? If they were even reading a FAQ on networking in the first place?

uh...right.

/me slinks back into his cave.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 14:20

I didn't even know they existed. =]
My favorite "network thing I didn't know existed until recently" was the two-way splitters. Something we'd been wiring here by hand for a long time and is available as a simple plug-in dealie.

A cat-5 cable has eight wires. Only four of those wires are used for ordinary LAN communication.

So if you want, you can put one of these "splitters" on one end of a cable run (say, the single port at a guy's desk) and put another splitter at the other end of the cable run (say, just before the hub) and you get two network plugs for the price of one.

You still need two ports on the hub, what you're saving is a second cable-run.

Dunno how well it works for 100 megabit, but we've been using it successfully for 10 megabit for years now.
Posted by: JeffS

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 14:28

my biggest problem with crossover cables is that I have a bunch that look exactly like regular cables. So whenever I'm re-connecting out of my stock I can't alwasy be sure I've got the right kind of cable. But then that's my own fault for being disorganized.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 14:33

Just compare the color of the wires on the first pin on each side. Assuming that the cable works at all, same means straight, different means crossover.
Posted by: JeffS

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 14:45

Just compare the color of the wires on the first pin on each side.
Oh right . . . Hadn't thought of that. And I've even built one before.
Posted by: drakino

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 17:22

Dunno how well it works for 100 megabit, but we've been using it successfully for 10 megabit for years now.

This should work for 100 as well. Gigabit is where it needs all 8 wires, and all my drops in the house are ready for gigabit, minus one. I found a bad run of cable, and ended up using it anyhow since the repair people left it in the wall. It had 2 pairs not functioning, so I used the other two, and did use it at 100 for a time. It is now marked for my empeg at my desk though, so it is only running at 10.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 17:27

My only concern is crosstalk if you've got two runs of 100 sending saturated data at the same time across the same wire set.
Posted by: Rod

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 20:24

I've been running a 100 and a 10 over 30 metres of cable without any problems.
Posted by: lectric

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 20:38

No issues here. I do it all the time. We also have a few that split it to Cat5 and 2 pots lines. Again, with no issues.
Posted by: Ezekiel

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 20:53

This and this came in to the office today. Moving from 100bT unmanaged hubs (3 of them). The Dell was only $800 for 12 ports worth of 1000bT ($400 rebate). Woot!

-Zeke
Posted by: genixia

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 21:19

Just compare the color of the wires on the first pin on each side. Assuming that the cable works at all, same means straight, different means crossover.
Not quite. Just before I left for the NY/NJ empeg meet this spring I tossed what I thought was a crossover cable into my bag, and grabbed my laptop, just in case someone had a use for it.
Sure enough, someone wanted to upgrade to 2.0final and HJ. Can't remember who it was, but anyway. I discovered that my bag contained the straight cable that it always did, and this strange bastard cable - neither of which would work (obviously).

I've since discovered that Cisco management/console cables are sometimes implemented using a 9 pin D to RJ45 adapter and regular cat 5 cable... the cat 5 is wired so that one end is the mirror image of the other, and is known (to Cisco anyway) as a Rollover cable. And that is what I had in my bag.
Posted by: RobotCaleb

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 21:56

doesnt work for me either. im color blind. takes me an hour to make a crossover cable with that stupid translucent insulation on some of the cables out there
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 23:28

Hmm... I got to the part about "crossover cable" and said "Hmm... whatever." My hub auto-detects crossover cables, and Does The Right Thing. Half the cables I have are crossover cables scammed from my previous place of employ. (I had them with their permission, but never gave them back when they layed me off.)
Posted by: msaeger

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 10/09/2003 23:36

I wish there was a cross over version of these

Posted by: julf

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 04:19

In reply to:

You still need two ports on the hub, what you're saving is a second cable-run.


And if you have an old house, where squeezing in extra runs is hard or impossible, you definitely appreciate the saving.

I want as far as actually wiring up the terminations in the wiring cabinet as 2 x 4 wire connectors for each run.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 08:17

Not quite.
Well, I meant a cable that works for ethernet, but I do suppose that assumes something not easily checked.

BTW, rollover cables are fairly common. You'll find them connected to every telephone. At least each one with a cable.

Also BTW, have you noticed that electronics retailers have decided to divide phones into three categories: corded, cordless, and wireless? WTF is the difference between cordless and wireless (in reality)? Arbitrary distinctions like that are almost less than useless.
Posted by: Ezekiel

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 09:46

Bitt, I'd say the distinction is how far you can move before your signal cuts out. If it's cordless, 50 feet. If it's wireless, at least 300 feet.

-Zeke
Posted by: JeffS

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 09:49

I think the point he's trying to make, is that given the words "cordless" and "wireless" there's not obvious distinction. "Cordless" means "the phone has no cord" and "wireless" means "the phone has no wire". The problem is that both statements are true in both cases.
Posted by: tman

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 09:49

So one's analogue tech and the other is digital?
Posted by: peter

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 09:53

Cordless means you must wear denim. Wireless means if you twiddle the knobs you get the Home Service. Simple, really.

Peter
Posted by: Ezekiel

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 10:58

Ferretboy- I got the point. Did you get that my cell service sucks?
-Zeke

ps: Tman - the distinction is that wireless means cellular and cordless means your typical analog, 900 Mhz, 1.2Ghz or 5 Ghz residential cordless phone with one base station. It is rather a Stephen Wright -esque distinction.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 11:27

I got the point. Did you get that my cell service sucks?
Um no. I was too busy being an anal know-it-all.

I get it know though
Posted by: tman

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 11:29

Ahh okay. Cordless == Wireless over here from what I can tell. They're all residential cordless phones.
Cellular would be a mobile here
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 11:47

Hey, it could be worse. You could live at my house, where our 802.11 wireless internet link is repeatedly referred to as "Satellite" by a certain member of our household.
Posted by: julf

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 11:56

In reply to:

You could live at my house, where our 802.11 wireless internet link is repeatedly referred to as "Satellite" by a certain member of our household


Or you could be me, with 5 different phones - one normal cellular, one satellite (iridium), one WiFi, one "normal" VoIP (cisco), and one experimantal late-90's philips/lucent shanon "webphone" with LCD and VoIP. And no "normal" landline phone. Imagine teminological confusion
Posted by: Micman2b

Re: Suggestion for FAQ - 11/09/2003 16:39

Funny... This device reminds me of the Off Topic forum's posting called Coleman lantern - Rant recalling a unfortuante incident with a Zipka headlamp...



Sean in NC