There are however, a few things to bear in mind. The first is that all the baluns should be matched (buy them all from the same supplier) failure to do this can bring the whole network to a grinding halt (I know, I had this problem at a major distribution centre several years ago). The next thing to realise is that ICS only has 2 pairs so it will never run Gigabit Ethernet (Gigabit needs 4 pairs) even though the Type 1 cable is good for about 300MHz if installed correctly.

Token ring crossover cable?
Q. Please, help me, I normally make token ring cables for our network, the order of the cables is as follows:

At both ends the plugs are the same:
orange white / orange / green white / blue / blue white / green / brown white / brown

My question is: one of the techs wants a twist token ring cable, what would be the order of the cables?????

Please, respond or if you need more info, let me know,
your prompt response, will be greatly appreciated.


A. With a normal Type 1 or Type 6 Token Ring cable the colours are Red, Green, Orange, Black as there are only two pairs used. I assume your are using a Cat 5 cable which means that only the middle 4 wires are actually connected these will be your Green/White, Blue, Blue/White and Green on pins 3, 4, 5, & 6. These pairs on a Cat 5 cable are the greens on pins 3 & 6, and the blues on pins 4 & 5, therefore to make a cross over cable you have to connect them as follows:

Pin 3 (Green/White) to Pin 4 (Blue)
Pin 4 (Blue) to Pin 3 (Green/White)
Pin 5 (Blue/White) to Pin 6 (Green)
Pin 6 (Green) to Pin 5 (Blue/White)

So at one end you will have the greens straddling the blues and at the other end the blues will be straddling the greens, there is no need to the change the oranges and browns because they're not used. If this doesn't work it will be because the send and receive pairs are the wrong way round, so just try the other combination of connecting the solid colours together (ie. Blue to Green) and the whites together (ie. Blue/White to Green/White), but it should work as described above.

Is this cable something to do with a Token Ring fibre link?, if so, you will have to make sure you use it at the correct end of the link, but thats a whole other story!