Network Issues

ok this is very interesting... well my friend hosts these lan parties every week (well used too but now we have school). And his dad works with networks and was able to get him a cisco switch so we have really really low pings. Well for some reason the switch doesn't like the cat5 cables he bought... like the cat5 cables will work on my comp but it won't work on other ppl's comps (it will connect but then they can't connect to the internet... or the comp will say the cable isn't connect when it is). But then when we use different cables it works.

Now I don't really need an answer but I was just wondered why it would do this. The cables work because he has tested them with two different cable testers.

So is there a setting he needs to change to get the cables to work or what?

Is the cisco switch configured correctly? I have a old 10mbps Cisco switch that is very configurable but so far I have had 0 problems with cat5e.

I really doubt the switch would have a problem with the cable itself. Cables are very basic, they are either wired correctly and work, or don't. As long as it is a patch cable, and not a crossover, you should be fine. My guess would be it has something to do with the switch. Cisco siwtches aren't really plug and play like the many SOHO type networking devices. You need to connect to it with a console cable and configure it to work 100% in your situation. The default behavior, without any configuration, is to forward packets but it won't be able to find internet addresses unless you tell it how.

If you want to use it to share an internet connection and create a small LAN you will also need a router. The router connects to one of the switch ports, and then all the PCs connect to free swtich ports too. You will then want to make sure that the switch is using only VLAN 1, and it has an IP address within the same subnet as your PC's, but out of the DHCP range of the router. Then you also need to set the switches default gateway to be the router.

Once all that is setup properly you really shouldn't have any problems with specific cables.

well the thing is the switch works fine with everyones computer if we use my cable.... but it won't work with his cables even though they are good according to the cable testers.

But his cables will work on the newer comps like mine.