What's the difference between a crossover cable and a regular cat5 cable?

[Muse]

I've seen the term "crossover cable" used and it's evidently used for certain ethernet connections and not others. I have some cat5e cable and some RJ-45 plugs and a crimper, and I made a cable that goes from my DSL modem to the ethernet card in my computer. I'm going to be wiring an ethernet network using a D-Link DI-704p router, which I haven't received yet.

What's a crossover cable? Do I need any? Can I make them? How do I find out about this stuff. I'm thinking about taking a networking class at a night school, folks. I don't know what a port is, DHCP, what a real firewall vs. a mickey mouse firewall is, etc. etc. Thanks for any help....

 

[Tokar]

A crossover cable is a CAT5 cable that is wired in such a way that you can connect the network card of 2 computers over this one crossover cable that the computers are essentially on a LAN (local area network).
It works the same way as buying a hub or a switch and plugging the netowrk card of each computer into the hub or switch using standard CAT5 cables.

If you plan on having 3 or more computers, or planning on getting a hub (or a switch), you dont need crossover cables.

Yes you can make them. Standard CAT5 cable is made by just making sur that at each end, the colored cables match up wire for wire...as in from top to bottom on one end you see R/Rs/B/Bs/G/Gs/O/Os (lower case s = stripe; R=red, O=orange, B=Blue,G=green), then the other end has to see R/Rs/B/Bs/G/Gs/O/Os...
Crossover cable does not follow that method, there is a particular method of wiring to make the cable...
look here: http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/crossover.html

Uh... http://www.whatis.com is a great source for defining computer terms... DHCP: http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci213894,00.html

 

[Soybomb]

Originally posted by: Tokar
A crossover cable is a CAT5 cable that is wired in such a way that you can connect the network card of 2 computers over this one crossover cable that the computers are essentially on a LAN (local area network).
It works the same way as buying a hub or a switch and plugging the netowrk card of each computer into the hub or switch using standard CAT5 cables.

If you plan on having 3 or more computers, or planning on getting a hub (or a switch), you dont need crossover cables.

Yes you can make them. Standard CAT5 cable is made by just making sur that at each end, the colored cables match up wire for wire...as in from top to bottom on one end you see R/Rs/B/Bs/G/Gs/O/Os (lower case s = stripe; R=red, O=orange, B=Blue,G=green), then the other end has to see R/Rs/B/Bs/G/Gs/O/Os...
Crossover cable does not follow that method, there is a particular method of wiring to make the cable...
look here: http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/crossover.html

Uh... http://www.whatis.com is a great source for defining computer terms... DHCP: http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci213894,00.html

If you're wiring your straight through cables just so both ends match up as I read it to be, thats incorrect. Make sure both ends match either the 568A or 568B wiring standard.