What happens if...

[Killbat]

Can anybody predict what this will do?

At my school we have two ethernet jacks in our suite, and two computers.
The ethernet jacks lead to what is probably a really fancy switch, and they run at 10mbps/FDX.

What would happen if I put a plain old Linksys 100mbps switch in the middle of everything? In other words, both ethernet jacks and both computers all go into the switch.

Would the fancy school switch detect the loop and cut one of the ports?
Would both computers pick one of the school's jacks to talk to?
Would each computer pick one and stick to it?
Would the two computers randomly pick a jack whenever they tried to make a connection?

 

[Hessakia]

I have been to 2 universities, Tristate University (Angola, IN) and Central Michigan University (Mt. Pleasant, MI) and each had a different network


TSU had a 100Bas Tx network, with 2 Ethernet jacks in each room. The IP addresses weren't static, so every reboot you had a new IP address--with this setup, you could use a switch and both computers would be able to connect to the network--we did this, were 2 computers used the same jack with the use of switch.

Now, CMU, on the other hand had an older 10mbs network, where everyone had a static IP, so when you hooked up a switch to one of the ports in the room, and then 2 computesr up to a switch, only one computer could access the network and the other was blocked because its IP address couldn't be renewed or something like that


for what its worth, these are my experiences.

Hessakia

 

[Santa]

Because the Linksys switch does not have any type of STP or Spanning tree algorithm built in the school's switch would not know how to communicate and shut down the loop.

Most likley both PCs will not work correctly if both of the ethernet jacks were used out of the wall

Their switch will know two paths in which to get to your Physical address and your switch will know two paths to get to your Physical address and this will cause a loop eventually and I predict at one point some IT support personnel will kick in the door of the room that has this switch hooked up to and get medevil on it.

If you want to try it try it at home.. not in a work, school enviroment. Your only going to hurt yourself and perhaps lose a switch.

 

[rw120555]

What exactly is your goal in doing this? Are you trying to get the 2 pcs to communicate at 100mbps between themselves? I'm guessing what you propose won't work but there may be some alternatives:

* You might get by with plugging the switch into just one ethernet port. If IP addresses are dynamically assigned, then each pc will get an ip address, they'll be able to communicate with each other at 100mbps and they'll communicate with the campus network at 10mbps.

* You could try bridging two networks. You hook up the switch between your 2 machines, creating a little mini-network. Then, you could plug each PC in to a separate campus ethernet jack. (You'll need an additional ethernet card in each machine or maybe a USB ethernet card). That might work fine as is, but if not you can bridge your networks. In WinXP, you would open network connections, select each of your network connections (the two ethernet cards), right click, select bridge. (Not sure if you would want or need to do this on both PCs or not). Your little mini-network of 2 pcs would then be seemlessly connected to the larger campus network -- at least I think it would. I've used this kind of approach for bridging HPNA and ethernet networks, but in my case I had total control over both networks.)

If you clarify what you want, maybe we can give you more specifics. I can post some more on bridging but won't bother unless this seems to be on the right track.

 

[Killbat]

I don't really want anything, I'm just curious about what it might do.