AT-x210-9GT, AT-x210-16GT, and AT-x210-24GT Switches Installation Guide
Cabling the Switch
Observe the following guidelines when connecting twisted pair and fiber optic cables to the ports on the switch:
The connector on the cable should fit snugly into the port on the switch. The tab on the connector should lock the connector into place.
Because the twisted pair ports have auto-MDI/MDI-X, you may use straight-through twisted pair cable to connect any type of network device to the switch.
If 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 that form the loop until after you activate a spanning tree protocol on the switch. Data loops can adversely affect network performance.
If you are creating a port trunk, do not connect the cables of the trunk to the switch until after you have created the trunk in the switch’s management software. Otherwise, a network loop will result which can adversely affect network performance.
The default setting for the wiring configurations of the ports is auto- MDI/MDI-X. The default setting is appropriate for switch ports that are connected to 10/100Base-TX network devices that also support auto-MDI/MDI-X.
The default auto-MDI/MDI-X setting is not appropriate for switch ports that are connected to 10/100Base-TX network devices that do not support auto-MDI/MDI-X and have a fixed wiring configuration. For switch ports connected to those types of network devices, you should disable auto-MDI/MDI-X and set the wiring configurations manually.
The appropriate MDI/MDI-X setting for a switch port connected to a 10/100Base-TX network device with a fixed wiring configuration depends on the setting of the network device and whether the switch and network device are connected with straight-through or crossover cable. If you are using straight-through twisted pair cable, the wiring configurations of a port on the switch and a port on a network device must be opposite each other, such that one port uses MDI and the other MDI-X. For example, if a network device has a fixed wiring configuration of MDI, you must disable auto-MDI/MDI-X on the corresponding switch port and manually set it to MDI-X. If you are using crossover twisted pair cable, the wiring configurations of a port on the switch and a port on a network device must be the same.
