Uplink

Not a problem really, just curiosity. I bought a secondhand 10/100
switch a couple of years ago and used it with a D-Link wireless router
to feed various PCs. The D-Link expired recently and I replaced it
with a Netgear wireless router. Since doing so, however, I can no
longer patch the router to one of the 16 standard ports on the switch:
it /must/ be patched to the "uplink" port. Does this mean that the
uplink port or one of the routers was crossover wired?

On 30 Aug 2006 09:15:46 -0700, "marvin" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Not a problem really, just curiosity. I bought a secondhand 10/100
>switch a couple of years ago and used it with a D-Link wireless router
>to feed various PCs. The D-Link expired recently and I replaced it
>with a Netgear wireless router. Since doing so, however, I can no
>longer patch the router to one of the 16 standard ports on the switch:
>it /must/ be patched to the "uplink" port. Does this mean that the
>uplink port or one of the routers was crossover wired?

Yes.

IME hubs and switches often had a uplink port (or a switchable one)
which did away with the need for a crossover cable.

Robert
Robert

Interesting. The former router was older but could cope.. the newer
one can't?!

(E-Mail Removed)lid wrote:

> On 30 Aug 2006 09:15:46 -0700, "marvin" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
> >Not a problem really, just curiosity. I bought a secondhand 10/100
> >switch a couple of years ago and used it with a D-Link wireless router
> >to feed various PCs. The D-Link expired recently and I replaced it
> >with a Netgear wireless router. Since doing so, however, I can no
> >longer patch the router to one of the 16 standard ports on the switch:
> >it /must/ be patched to the "uplink" port. Does this mean that the
> >uplink port or one of the routers was crossover wired?
>
> Yes.
>
> IME hubs and switches often had a uplink port (or a switchable one)
> which did away with the need for a crossover cable.
>
> Robert
> Robert

marvin wrote:

> Interesting. The former router was older but could cope.. the newer
> one can't?!

Can you identify the model numbers of both units?

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:17:03 +0100, Dougal
<DougalAThiskennel.free-online.co.uk> wrote:

>marvin wrote:
>
>> Interesting. The former router was older but could cope.. the newer
>> one can't?!
>
>Can you identify the model numbers of both units?

My recollection is that it was the older hubs/switches which had
specific "link" ports or switched ones to achieve the crossover.

Soln. buy a crossover cable and make sure you keep it well labelled!
Robert

In message <(E-Mail Removed). com>,
marvin <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
[Re: X/uplink ports]
>Interesting. The former router was older but could cope.. the newer
>one can't?!

Some do, some don't. Uplink ports used to be shared. There would be two
sockets on a switch next to each other sharing a single channel, one a
straight-through and the other a crossover. You could use one socket or
the other but not both at the same time. The electronics got smarter and
the uplink socket on a switch became autoswitching, able to detect what
kind of cable and device was connected to it and adapt automatically.
Nowadays even on cheap switches all the sockets will do this
autoswitching.

However doing this adds complexity and reduces reliability to the
switch design and "real" switches don't do this. The switch makers
assume that professionally installed switches will be set up with the
right cables instead of having to work around mistakes by
less-experienced installers.
--
To reply, my gmail address is nojay1 Robert Sneddon