Geek question

[ciphergoth]

About network switches. Can you join two cheapo (Dabs Value) 100BASE-T switches with a crossover cable?

One friend argues "no" on the grounds that before any switch will send a packet to the other, it would have to know of an address at the other end, but neither switch will know of any addresses on the other switch until some packets have been exchanged. (Is that right?) This makes sense, but it occurs to me that if switches broadcast any packets they don't know how to route then all will be well. I don't know if they do though.

I also have no idea what to do if I can't connect them this way! Possibly buy another PCMCIA Ethernet card for the laptop that's also the gateway, but they are costly.

Advice gratefully received...

Comments

[darkain.livejournal.com]

i would recomend searching for a network switch that auto-senses cross-over connections, as to not have to worry about if it should be cross over or straite. i have a switch like this with 8 ports, and every port can be either cross over or not, and it autodetects on every single port, so there is no configuration at all. we usually use it alot at lan parties as our main switch in a star like configuration where it is the central switch, and then we have 5 and 8 port switches hooked up to it, and also usually the game server itself. i dont remember the brand name of my switch, it was a really cheapo generic non-main stream brand, but it just uses a standard realtek chipset inside. the switch is painted blue now, so i cant simply look at it and tell you model numbers or anything like that either. :P