Network Troubleshooting

[(Shovel)]

Hooray! I fitting the third PC into my LAN today, and nought is happening.

Basically, the PC and the Switch both say "not plugged in foo!". Which is not a great start when this piece of cable has been run intricately through my house over the past two weeks.

I'm hoping that the fault is in the sockets, which I will rewire in a moment. However, on inspection they both appear to be fine - I wired two other sockets in the same way and had no problems, they *look* identical in fitting.

I've already checked the interconnects, used the two new cables, and used the two cables that I use for my own connection. This still didn't work.

So, I'm a bit stumped now, not really sure where to go if rewiring doesn't do it.

Pre-empting a dismal failure, can any of you nice people suggest furthur courses of action?

 

[Testin da Cable]

have you plugged the box directly into the switch to verify it works?

 

[(Shovel)]

- will try that, thank you TeeDee, I'd overlooked a faulty PC (it's a new one and all).

*fluffle*

 

[xane]

Another thing to remember is if the network cable is too long or has interference then it may not reach at 100Mbit, if your switch/hub or NIC is not a dual speed one then it can't drop down to 10Mbit.

I have this situation, my step-sons PC has a long cable and has to run at 10Mbit.

 

[(Shovel)]

The cable in question is about 25 Metres. 100Mbit will go to 100 Metres I believe?

The switch is a Netgear FS105 (Auto Uplink model), which has flashing lights for 100Mb and for 10Mb. I don't know if that means it will do as you suggest though. I will try to test it tomorrow though

 

[bids]

Can you borrow an ethernet cable tester to make sure the cable integrity is sound ?

 

[(Shovel)]

Fixed.

When wiring up one end to the RJ45 socket, I have cut about half of the twisted pairs when stripping off the outer covering from the cable. Strangely, this had a detrimental effect on the "connected" state of the cable. Redid it, more carefully, and away it goes

Thanks for all the help

 

[The-Don]

Just out of interest, where did you get all your bits from?

i.e. I'm after a box of cat5e, a crimp and all the other necessary tools/parts.. cheapest seem to be maplins.. any other suggestions?

 

[(Shovel)]

Originally posted by The-Don
Just out of interest, where did you get all your bits from?

i.e. I'm after a box of cat5e, a crimp and all the other necessary tools/parts.. cheapest seem to be maplins.. any other suggestions?

I went from Maplin. I borrowed Crimps from my girlfriend's Dad though, since £15+ to make 4 pieces of cable is a little excessive!

Sockets are fairly expensive though, depends what level of result you're after, obviously just sticking plugs on both ends will work