sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking Simple networking problem ... but can't figure it out!

Hello everyone:

We had some major renovations in our school's library over the summer, and right now, I'm rewiring everything for computer. Everything has been fine until I ran into a problem this morning, and for the life of me, a solution is not coming to my mind, because I'm not sure what the problem is. Here's the situation:

1. Cat5 cable begins in the basement via patch panel, and goes up to the library.

2. I terminated the cable and put a data jack on the end of it, then mounted it in a surface mount box.

3. When I plug a straight-through cat5 cable into the jack, everything works great - can brose the Internet, an IP is assigned via DHCP, etc. This tells me that the jack is working fine.

4. The next step was to take a straight-through cable with one end in the jack, and plug the other end into a Dell PowerEdge 2324 24-port switch. I have a light showing link and status.

5. When I try to plug a PC into any port on the switch, it can't find the DHCP server, and I get the "limited or no connectivity message".

6. I also tried a Linksys 16-port workgroup switch (I know that this one works for sure), and got the same results.

7. I know that a crossover cable would provide no help here, but for grins, I made one and tried that on both switches as well - no dice.

What on earth am I missing here? I did this very same thing in a few offices, and everything went as expected; am not sure why this is causing problems. Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

-Michael/AdemcoWisc

What is this plugged into in the basement? Are you in an uplink port? what port on the Dell switch are you plugged into from the wall?

First question is what WRichey asked. What type of switch are you plugged into and what port. uplink, standard, Auto uplink?

Are you getting a link light on the switch when you plug it in?

Have you hard coded a port to be 100mb full duplex or is it auto negotiate.

some times there is a problem with negotiation between switches.

Next would be how many switches do you have plugged into the one down stairs already?

5 or more/ 5 or less.

In some intances it can cause issues.

Also, try disabling the NIC card in the control panel and then re-enabling it. I have to do that sometimes with my laptop when I plug into different switches.

If either of your switches do not have auto negotiate built in then you must use the uplink port on one of the switches (not both) or build a cross-over cable.