Installing New Netgear Gigabyte Switch

[redjr]

I spent the better part of yesterday and last night trying to switch over my home cabling(cat5e) to a new Netgear GS116 16-port gigabyte switch. At first, I intend to temporarily daisy-chain another gigabyte switch(D-Link DGS-2205) due to existing cabling and location of some media-centric equipment, until I can reroute all separate cabling to the 16-port switch.

In the past, I have been successful in daisy-chaining switches without problems. However, yesterday proved almost too much to bare. I make most of interconnect cabling and use cat5e certified cable. I also have a Paladin LAN Cable-Check 1574 device for checking cables, plugs and jacks. In two different cases I made cables yesterday that when checked with the 1574 device checked perfectly with pin-to-pin alignment. I could then take said cable and connect it directly to the device(computer) from the Netgear switch and it would function fine. I would then connect the same cable from the Netgear(GS116) switch to the D-Link 2205) and it would not function. I could NOT get the two switches to talk to each other.

In further testing I took a store bought cable(cat5e), connected it between the two switches and it worked! So, I thought I would test the store-bought cable(with the 1574) and found that pin 1 was OPEN. How odd is that? One end of that cable was not connected to pin one! Thinking that was the only difference in the two cables I cut pin 1 on my my homemade cable and reconnected between the two switches and still nothing. OK, I'm baffled at this point.

Question.. Are there issues with cat5e homemade cables I'm not considering here, or is the issue with trying to connect the two switches? They seem to function just fine with a 'weird' store bought cable though. I'm confused. Comments?

 

[bla!!]

There's one thing to consider.
When connecting switch to switch, you need a crossover cable. Unless both devices are auto-sensing and will switch the pairs for you.

 

[redjr]

There's one thing to consider.
When connecting switch to switch, you need a crossover cable. Unless both devices are auto-sensing and will switch the pairs for you.

I thought about that, but aren't all modern switches auto-sensing by design anymore? I thought crossover cables were only needed when connecting two computers together directly.

Edit: Both switches support auto-sensing, and auto-negotiation or cable recognition.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

It doesn't matter. Even with auto-sensing switches, you need a crossover cable before they will connect to eachother.

 

[redjr]

It doesn't matter. Even with auto-sensing switches, you need a crossover cable before they will connect to eachother.

Well.....then.... How does splain the store bought cable that tested as straight thru pin-for-pin, except for pin 1 being open? You don't know how many RJ45 connectors I went through trying to get it right. Never did! Somethin's not right in river city as they say. Urgh!

 

[Deathwalker]

If the switch supports auto-sensing it can switch the pins used for TX/RX so that a straight-through cable can link the two switches together (where normally a cross-over is required).

All modern switches are auto-negotiating e.g. port speed and duplex are automatically negotiated. Not all are auto-sensing - this involves detecting the pin use expected by the other side and adjusting the TX/RX pins to accommodate.

Try to use a cross-over cable as suggested by bla!!.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

If it works with the crossover (which it should), take a working straight-through and try it with that, just to test whether the switches actually can connect without a crossover. I thinks it won't work, but it'd be good to find out for sure if it will or won't.