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#1
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Old PowerBook and Dell laptop - crossover cable woes
Got a weird problem.
Wallstreet Powerbook (233mhz, 30g drive, 384 ram, OSX 10.2.8) and Dell Inspiron 4100 (1.13ghz, 30g drive, 256 ram, XP Home), hooking them up with a crossover cable, I can get them to barely ping each other, but with high packet loss - 25 to 75 percent loss. They can see each other in their respective network setups, and if I set up the powerbook as a mapped network drive from the XP machine, it tries to hook up, but fails 90 percent of the time. Same if I try it from the Powerbook's end. If they do manage to negotiate, the connection fails anytime you try to transfer a file. BTW, when these two machines are on my regular hub as clients (straight-thru ethernet cable), they see each other fine, network and transfer files beautifully; I even have the Powerbook set up as a mapped network drive, working as a file server to the Dell. Can get to the XP machine from the Powerbook no problem. They work normally. I saw on a show that more modern macs were able to auto-sense when they needed a crossover cable, and switched themselves so they do not need it somehow, so on an off chance that OSX gave my Powerbook this ability I tried a straight-thru cable between the two - no dice. Nothing when I tried that. What do you suppose is happening? Thanks for any help! |
#2
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Possibly a defective crossover cable? They communicate OK with each other when
plugged into a regular network, so the cable is the only difference. If you need to connect them together outside the confines of your regular network, and a different crossover cable doesn't resolve the problem, get yourself a cheap 4-port 10/100 hub and connect them together thru the hub. One other possibility... When connected via crossover cable, how are they obtaining their IP addresses? Remember, there is not DHCP server to assign IP addresses in a crossover cable setup. If they do not have fixed IP addresses and sensible subnet mask when connected via crossover, configure them both with fixed IP and subnet, and try again... Ben Myers On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 16:08:09 GMT, anon wrote: Got a weird problem. Wallstreet Powerbook (233mhz, 30g drive, 384 ram, OSX 10.2.8) and Dell Inspiron 4100 (1.13ghz, 30g drive, 256 ram, XP Home), hooking them up with a crossover cable, I can get them to barely ping each other, but with high packet loss - 25 to 75 percent loss. They can see each other in their respective network setups, and if I set up the powerbook as a mapped network drive from the XP machine, it tries to hook up, but fails 90 percent of the time. Same if I try it from the Powerbook's end. If they do manage to negotiate, the connection fails anytime you try to transfer a file. BTW, when these two machines are on my regular hub as clients (straight-thru ethernet cable), they see each other fine, network and transfer files beautifully; I even have the Powerbook set up as a mapped network drive, working as a file server to the Dell. Can get to the XP machine from the Powerbook no problem. They work normally. I saw on a show that more modern macs were able to auto-sense when they needed a crossover cable, and switched themselves so they do not need it somehow, so on an off chance that OSX gave my Powerbook this ability I tried a straight-thru cable between the two - no dice. Nothing when I tried that. What do you suppose is happening? Thanks for any help! |
#3
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In comp.sys.mac.comm anon wrote:
Got a weird problem. Wallstreet Powerbook (233mhz, 30g drive, 384 ram, OSX 10.2.8) and Dell Inspiron 4100 (1.13ghz, 30g drive, 256 ram, XP Home), hooking them up with a crossover cable, I can get them to barely ping each other, but with high packet loss - 25 to 75 percent loss. They can see each other in their respective network setups, and if I set up the powerbook as a mapped network drive from the XP machine, it tries to hook up, but fails 90 percent of the time. Same if I try it from the Powerbook's end. If they do manage to negotiate, the connection fails anytime you try to transfer a file. BTW, when these two machines are on my regular hub as clients (straight-thru ethernet cable), they see each other fine, network and transfer files beautifully; I even have the Powerbook set up as a mapped network drive, working as a file server to the Dell. Can get to the XP machine from the Powerbook no problem. They work normally. I saw on a show that more modern macs were able to auto-sense when they needed a crossover cable, and switched themselves so they do not need it somehow, so on an off chance that OSX gave my Powerbook this ability I tried a straight-thru cable between the two - no dice. Nothing when I tried that. What do you suppose is happening? Thanks for any help! The PB 233 is old enough that it does not have autosensing on the ethernet port that will always negotiate full/half-duplex connections properly with more modern ethernet ports. The high packet loss rate is an usual symptom of mismatch between the two ends of the cable. I would suggest ssticking with using the hub, that forces both laptop ethernet ports to the same state. The ability to auto-sense is built into the port hardware, upgrading the OS will not add capabilities to older hardware that does not support them. Joe |
#4
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"Joe Heimann" wrote in message ... In comp.sys.mac.comm anon wrote: Got a weird problem. Wallstreet Powerbook (233mhz, 30g drive, 384 ram, OSX 10.2.8) and Dell Inspiron 4100 (1.13ghz, 30g drive, 256 ram, XP Home), hooking them up with a crossover cable, I can get them to barely ping each other, but with high packet loss - 25 to 75 percent loss. They can see each other in their respective network setups, and if I set up the powerbook as a mapped network drive from the XP machine, it tries to hook up, but fails 90 percent of the time. Same if I try it from the Powerbook's end. If they do manage to negotiate, the connection fails anytime you try to transfer a file. BTW, when these two machines are on my regular hub as clients (straight-thru ethernet cable), they see each other fine, network and transfer files beautifully; I even have the Powerbook set up as a mapped network drive, working as a file server to the Dell. Can get to the XP machine from the Powerbook no problem. They work normally. I saw on a show that more modern macs were able to auto-sense when they needed a crossover cable, and switched themselves so they do not need it somehow, so on an off chance that OSX gave my Powerbook this ability I tried a straight-thru cable between the two - no dice. Nothing when I tried that. What do you suppose is happening? Thanks for any help! The PB 233 is old enough that it does not have autosensing on the ethernet port that will always negotiate full/half-duplex connections properly with more modern ethernet ports. The high packet loss rate is an usual symptom of mismatch between the two ends of the cable. I would suggest ssticking with using the hub, that forces both laptop ethernet ports to the same state. The ability to auto-sense is built into the port hardware, upgrading the OS will not add capabilities to older hardware that does not support them. Joe You could also force 1/2 or full in the settings. Tom |
#5
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In article ,
anon wrote: What do you suppose is happening? It's not working well. The Wallstreet doesn't know how to auto-sense squat. Remember, it's not even 100Mb. Use a hub or switch. This isn't a weird problem; it's just to be expected. -- Nobody knows Particle Man. |
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