patch cable is same as crossover cable?

[MELTRONICS]

Is a patch cable the same as crossover cable?

Are we talking about the same thing, just a different name?


What is the name for a non-crossover cable? Unpatch?

[Zachary]

No a patch cord is not the same thing as a cross over cable. Patch cords are for connecting panels of larger lan number devices, and are usually short. the non cross over cable is an ethernet cord. They are not interchangeable either.

[Big Fish]

The term "patch" can be quiet confusing for people because really it means a length of cable, generally fiber or CAT5, with RJ-45 or SC, ST, LC, MT-RJ connectors on both ends depending on the type of medium used.

They are generally short in length used to connect jacks in a patch panel over to ports on a switch or to connect a computer with a NIC to a RJ-45 jack in a room. The networking term "crossover" really is the way in which the CAT5 pairs are wired be it the 568-A scheme on one end and the 568-B scheme on the other. Actually, most crossovers are patch cables usually designated with the color red, mine are green but I like to confuse the hell out of my fellow net admins .

[MELTRONICS]

They are generally short in length used to connect jacks in a patch panel over to ports on a switch or to connect a computer with a NIC to a RJ-45 jack in a room.

I looked at the cable pins on both sides of the new, supposedly non-crossover cable. They both align to the same side. Does this mean it is a non-crossover? As in, NIC to switch?

[Big Fish]

If the pin outs are in the same order on both ends of the cable, then that there is a "non-crossover" cable, aka straight through cable. That means it would be completely suitable for connecting a computers NIC to a switch .

As a little side note here, depending on the quality switch...most decent switches have auto-sensing ports on them that will automatically make the adjustment for a crossover situation without having to use an actual crossover cable. This would only be an issue if you were up-linking switches together which in the old days, and some “retro” switches today, had the dedicated uplink port which was specifically used to daisy-chain switches.