what would happen if...

[Red Squirrel]

I had this in my head for a bit, since an uplink on a hub/switch/router is basicly "crossed over", what would happen if you were to connect that to, say the internet (modem) and use a cross over cable, connect it to another port that is not an uplink, and connect it to something else.

What would happen? Would it be kind of like a "backup"?

If I would do this with a 10mbps hub and that both uplinks would go to a 100mbps source, would it actually double the speed?

Just curious.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I'm not really even sure exactly what you mean. But you can't connect one device to a hub or switch via two cables, unless you use very high end switches and network cards that support bonding. For any normal device, each port on a computer has to have its own IP (or be bridged), and a hub or switch won't like receiving the same data over two different ports.

 

[Haden]

If I understood your question you want use all 8 lines on modem?
10/100 base is using only 4, so connecting other 4 to any device will give you nothing.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I don't think he was referring to using individual wires. After rereading it though, I don't think my first guess was right.

If you had a switch connected to a cable modem with the uplink port, and then connected a regular port using a cross-over cable, and going to something like another cable modem or a computer with a dialup adapter, you couldn't easily make that a "backup" or anything. The problem would be that you'd have to configure multiple LAN connections and set up the other system with ICS or some other gateway software, and manually switch everything over if the cable modem went down. Also, most cable services only provide one IP unless you pay extra, so using a hub or switch with multiple devices wouldn't work properly. Putting a router in the mix doesn't make it too complicated.

Essentially the fact that you're using the uplink port really doesn't change the requirements for laying out a network with a secondary service for backup.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Oh ok. I was just curious about it. I was thinking it might be the same way internet routers work (ex: if the ping is too high it goes to another router) but that's all high end equipment. I figured it would not work though.