The LED of my SMC 10/100 switch is slowly flashing when I connected the onboard Gigabit Lan port.

[IsOs]

Does this means the port is dead? I'm just using the same Cat5 wire that I'm using with the 10/100 network cards. Do I need a special wire? Do I need to have a Gigabit port in the switch?

Pardon my ignorance. This is my first time handling a gigabit port.

 

[LucJoe]

pretty sure you need CAT6.. something about mhz ratings or something, but what it boils down to is that CAT5 isn't RATED to run at gigabit speeds, but some will

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Well, first off, the port won't be running at the gigahertz rate, since it's connected to a 10/100 port! I was under the impression that gigahertz Ethernet would automagically adjust to slower rates if so connected, but I don't have any gigahertz equipment to actually test that contention.

 

[cmetz]

Depending on how old your switch is, the gigabit PHY might be confusing it. Try manually setting your NIC's speed on your PC.