Chapter 3: Cabling the Network Ports

Cabling the Switch

Observe the following guidelines when connecting a twisted pair or fiber optic cables to ports on the switch:

ˆThe connector on the cable should fit snugly into the port on the switch. The tab on the connector should lock the connector into place.

ˆThe twisted pair ports on the switch are auto-MDI/MDI-X. As a result, any type of network device can be connected to a port on the switch using a straight-through twisted pair cable. If you disable Auto- Negotiation on the port, the port defaults to MDI-X.

ˆIf your network topology contains a loop where two or more network devices can communicate with each other over more than one network path, do not connect the network cables forming the loop until you have activated a Spanning Tree Protocol on the switch. Data loops can adversely affect network performance.

ˆFor a port to successfully Auto-Negotiate its duplex mode with an end node, the end node should also be using Auto-Negotiation. Otherwise, a duplex mode mismatch can occur. A port using Auto-Negotiation defaults to half-duplex if it detects that the end node is not using Auto- Negotiation. This can result in a mismatch if the end node is operating at a fixed duplex mode of full-duplex.

To avoid this problem, disable Auto-Negotiation on a port and set the port’s speed and duplex mode manually if the end node has a fixed duplex mode of full-duplex.

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Allied Telesis AT-GS950/8POE manual Cabling the Switch