Networking my laptop into my existing network

[supermegauser]

So I have a network that is running fine. And my laptop hooks into this network just fine also, providing that I unplug the ethernet from my computer into my laptop. But I'd really like to have both online at once.

So I went out & got a Cat6 network cable thing from radio shack, and plugged it into the router, and into the laptop, and it doesn't seem to wanna work. Yes I configured the router settings to take another DHCP client. The laptop works just fine on the other ethernet cable though. I also tried the new cable on my PC and it also rejects it. The network seems to blink on & off instead of staying green.

Is this a problem with the cord or is there something wrong with the way I'm setting up the network?

[sinistar]

well cat6 should work as far as I know. it's part of the same 568A standard as cat 5E. However, when I recently purchased some cable, I choose 5E for my network. they hboth can handle up to 1 gigabit transmission.

[sinistar]

i also forgot to mention you might want to try an ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew after hooking up to the router.

also, although i'mnot sure, using a cat 6 cable and a cat 5e cable on the same network segment might be concern for issues.

maybe just return the cat 6 for a cat5e unless someone has a better solution

[ECA]

If it DONT work on either unit..
It dont work.
Could be to long,
Could be a broken line.
Could be NOT matching cables..

[Ioman]

hmm, not sure what is going on here. Last time I checked CAT6 did was not a certified IEEE standard or something like that. Is that still the case? You simply could have a bad cable, I would try getting a new cable to see if it works. Perhaps the heads were crimped on wrong or something.

[theguy]

I've never heard of CAT6. You need to get a CAT5 patch cable, not a crossover cable, in order to get your laptop to work. Maybe it's time for you to go wireless...

[jfila]

My whole house is wired with about 1200 feet of Cat6 to 24 ports ... its fine. And considering that the max length is 300 meters, I doubt he bought too long of a cable.

What router do you have? Some routers allow you to specify how many DHCP clients are allowed. Maybe you have it set to only 1. Also as said before, do dhcp /release and dhcp /renew to make sure you are getting a new IP address.