Allied Telesis X3112 User Manual

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Chapter 2: Installation
82
Cabling the Twisted-Pair or Fiber Optic Ports
Observe the following guidelines when connecting a twisted-pair or fiber 
optic cable to a port on the switch:
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The connector on the cable should fit snugly into the port on the 
switch. The tab on the connector should lock the connector into place.
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Because the twisted-pair ports on the switch are auto-MDI/MDI-X, any 
type of network device can be connected to a port on the switch using 
a straight-through twisted-pair cable. If you disable Auto-Negotiation 
on the port, the port defaults to MDI-X. For instructions on how to 
configure a port, refer to the Software Reference for SwitchBlade® 
x3100 Series Switches  on the ATI web site for specific information. 
Go to “Where to Find Web-based Guides” on page 13 for information 
about how to navigate to this document.
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If your network topology contains a loop where two or more network 
devices can communicate with each other over more than one network 
path, do not connect the network cables forming the loop until after 
you have activated a spanning tree protocol on the switch. Data loops 
can adversely affect network performance. 
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If you are creating a port trunk, you must configure the Switchblade 
x3112 Management Software before connecting the cables of the 
trunk to the switch. Otherwise, a network loop will result which can 
adversely affect network performance. 
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In order for a switch port to successfully Auto-Negotiate its duplex 
mode with an end node, the end node should also be using Auto-
Negotiation. Otherwise, a duplex mode mismatch can occur. A switch 
port using Auto-Negotiation defaults to half-duplex if it detects that the 
end node is not using Auto-Negotiation. This can result in a mismatch 
if the end node is operating at a fixed duplex mode of full-duplex.
To avoid this problem, disable Auto-Negotiation on a switch port and 
set the port’s speed and duplex mode manually if the end node has a 
fixed duplex mode of full-duplex.