Linksys EG0801W Planning Your Network, 10/100/1000 Workgroup GigaSwitch’s Front Panel, Overview

Instant Gigabit Series

The LED Indicators

The 10/100/1000 Workgroup GigaSwitch’s Front Panel

Power	Amber. The Power LED lights up when the Switch is pow-
	ered on.
Link/Act	Green. The Link/Act LED serves two purposes. If the LED
	is continuously lit up, the Switch is successfully connected to
	a device through the corresponding port (1 through 8). If the
	LED is flickering, the GigaSwitch is actively sending or
	receiving data over that port.
FD/Col	Green. The FD/Col LED also serves two purposes. If this
	LED is lit up continuously, the connection made through the
	corresponding port is running in Full Duplex mode. If the
	LED flickers, the connection is experiencing collisions.
	Infrequent collisions are normal. If this LED flickers too
	often, there may be a problem with your network.
10/100	Amber. The 10/100 LED lights up for any port when that port
	is operating at 100Mbps. If the LED is off while the network
	is operating, the port is operating at 10Mbps.
1000	Amber. The 1000 LED lights up when the Gigaswitch port is
	operating at 1000Mbps. If the LED is flickering, data is
	being transmitted through the port.
1000 Link/Act	Green. The 1000 Link/Act LED lights up when the Gigabit
	port is operating at 1000Mbps.
1000 FD/Col	Green. The 1000 FD/Col LED lights up continuously when
	the switch is operating at 2000Mbps and flickers when expe-
	riencing data collisions.

EtherFast® 10/100/1000 8+1 Workgroup GigaSwitch

Planning Your Network

Overview

Building a Gigabit network involves more topology rules in addition to the 10BaseT/100BaseT network rules. These rules specify distance limitations and cabling specifications. Data loss, collisions, and other network problems causing down time are likely to occur if the rules below are not followed.

•Use UTP Category 5 (or better) Ethernet cabling with four pairs of wires and RJ-45 tips for all Fast Ethernet connections. Gigabit connections should use Category 5e (or better).

•Use the chart below to position your switches, hubs and workstations.

From	To	Maximum Distance
Switch	Switch or Hub*	100 meters (328 feet) 1
Hub*	Hub*	5 meters (16.4 feet) 1
Switch or Hub	Workstation 1	100 meters (328 feet) 1

*Hub refers to any type of 100Mbps hub, including regular hubs and stackable hubs. A 10Mbps hub connected to another 10Mbps hub can span up to 100 meters (328 feet).

•No more than two hubs should be uplinked in a row in a Fast Ethernet net- work. A set of stacked hubs, which must be stacked with a stacking cable, counts as one hub or node on the network.

•In Fast Ethernet networks, your 10/100 Switch acts as a repeater, regener- ating data signals before passing them on to the next device. Passive hubs do not function as repeaters.

Switches Versus Hubs

Your Workgroup GigaSwitch boosts your network performance several times over, conserving your time, money and resources. The scalability of your Switch, its full duplex data transfer and dedicated bandwidth all contribute to maximizing efficiency in your Fast Ethernet network.

Your Switch’s 10/100 feature gives you a key advantage over other forms of networking by upgrading speed-critical network segments to 100Mbps while allowing existing 10BaseT networks to operate with the Switch. Allowing 10BaseT and 100BaseTX hardware speeds to run alongside each other elimi-

4 5