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Cat 5 or Cross-over?!?

M

mgravy

Senior member
O.K. -I am brand new to networking so be easy!! All I want to do is network 2 PC's at home with W2K. I have both systems plugged into a 4-port hub.

My question is what kind of cable to I use? -CAT 5 or Cross-over. What's the difference between the two types of cables, and when do you use one over the other?? 😕

Thanks!
 
Crossover do what the name implies. You switch wires 1 and 3, and 2 and 6. Used when you do not have a hub, to connect two PC's together. You could also use a crossover in lieu of a staight thru if you need an uplink port on a hub/switch but dont have one (an uplink port).
 
And, fwiw, try using Cat 5e. Price is close, or the same, depending, and you buy yourself some upgradability.
 
If it is not clear from the 2 previous posts, you need a CAT5 crossover cable. Pretty much all RJ45 LAN cables are CAT5, most are straight through, that means that the connectors are wired the same. A Cat5 crossover cable, on the other hand, wires the connectors differently so the recieve port of one NIC is connected to the transmit port of the other. So you need to head down to your local computer shop and ask for a CAT5 crossover cable.
 
Wait a minute....

If I were to connect my two systems directly from NIC to NIC, I would use a cross-over cable.

If I connect both systems into a hub, then I would use a straight through cable, right? or not?
 
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