Mixing Cat5 & Cat6 LAN cables

[avilt]

What happens when we mix cat5 and cat6 cables? For example from the desktop to patch panel it's cat5 (100mbps) and from the patch panel to the switch cat6 which supports gbps. Is it going to create any issues?

[swordcrowned]

none what so ever.

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[darren.g · Accepted solution]

avilt wrote:
What happens when we mix cat5 and cat6 cables? For example from the desktop to patch panel it's cat5 (100mbps) and from the patch panel to the switch cat6 which supports gbps. Is it going to create any issues?

Nope.

Your connection will run at the lowest common denominator - for example, if you have one part of the cable run which is Cat5 and the rest is Cat6 - the cable run will behave as if it's *all* Cat5.

So your desktops will get a Cat5 grade connection at 100 Mbps regardless of what you hang off the switch.

Cheers.

[swordcrowned · Accepted solution]

Darren,

Check out this site.  http://www.lkj.net/2008/02/cat-5e-or-cat-6-cables-for-server-gigabit-speeds/.  This is of course assuming that he was talking about CAT5e and not just CAT5, but the difference over short distances is negligible.

[darren.g]

Bryan Hefner wrote:
Darren,
Check out this site.  http://www.lkj.net/2008/02/cat-5e-or-cat-6-cables-for-server-gigabit-speeds/.  This is of course assuming that he was talking about CAT5e and not just CAT5, but the difference over short distances is negligible. 

Bryan.

The OP didn't mention Cat5e - only Cat5 - and there is significant difference in capabilities between Cat5 and Cat6 - meaning that any data path which includes Cat5 will *only* run at the maximum Cat5 capabilities - I.E. 100 Mb/s maximum on a 100 Mhz maximum bandwidth- Cat6 is capable of up to 10000 Mb/s (10 gig) over short enough cable runs at up to 250 Mhz maximum bandwidth.

Cat6 also *really* minimises NEXT (near end cross talk) by using a separator between the individual pairs in the cable.

This article gives a good quickie reference - http://cableorganizer.com/articles/cat5-cat5e-cat6.htm

Cheers.

[Shaun Whitehorse]

Your desk port -> cat5 cable run to -> punch down to patch panel -> then a cat6  cable is used from patch panel to the switch port.

What we are seeing is that the switch port comes up/up. But does not negotiate to full duplex and the server machine that is plugged into that desk port at the A location is not reachable by ping, is only passing one-way traffic.

I can hard code the switch port to full duplex and it comes up/up at full dup, but the server is still not reachable. Is there any odd anomaly's that cause the intermingle of Cat5 and/or Cat5e, and Cat6 to not talk as cleanly as a full run of the same media????