New Swisscom Box 21 - Ethernet cable

@DonPedro53

If the existing cable is a Gigabit Ethernet cable (Cat5e or higher), then you can continue to use it.

If it’s the flat, white cable with the yellow plugs, then you don’t have to change anything

@DonPedro53

This is never printed on the plugs, but perhaps on the cable itself. If you cannot determine the type of cable, your only option is to try. There is no risk of anything being damaged. If it works perfectly, you can leave the cable in place. If there are problems with the TV picture, you must at least consider the cable as a possible cause.

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@POGO 1104 wrote:

If it’s the flat, white cable with the yellow plugs, then you don’t have to change anything

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@POGO 1104

A long time ago, Swisscom also delivered white 4-wire ribbon cables with yellow plugs and these are exactly not suitable.

Yes, I know these cables, but afaik they are also 8-pin. They just look like they are 4-pin.

I still have one of these, I’ll check it with an RJ45 tester

@POGO 1104

Unfortunately I can’t test it, I disposed of all of them properly some time ago. But be careful: Even if the cables have 8 wires or Just because it should have 4 pairs of wires does not mean that it is at least Cat5e or better. In addition to the 4 pairs of wires, some additional parameters must be met for Gigabit Ethernet.

So I think the chance of finding a LAN cable somewhere that wouldn’t work with the TV Box 21 (Fast Ethernet Adapter) is extremely low.

Why not just connect the existing LAN cable and trust the 99.9999% chance that it will work…

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@Werner wrote:

So I think the chance of finding a LAN cable somewhere that wouldn’t work with the TV Box 21 (Fast Ethernet Adapter) is extremely low.

Why not just connect the existing LAN cable and trust the 99.9999% chance that it will work…

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@Werner

Even if the TV-Box can only support Fast Ethernet, it must be connected to the Gigabit Ethernet port of the IB using a Gigabit Ethernet cable. Otherwise, it is not guaranteed that the IB’s Giga interface can negotiate speed and duplex correctly. The result would be possible speed or duplex mismatches that can lead to very insidious errors. When it comes to the cable to be used, it is not the slowest interface that is crucial, but rather the fastest of the two peers.

I already suggested the “just test it out” method in post #5.

You can make things that are actually simple completely unnecessarily complicated.

The answer to the questioner is very simple:

If the already laid Ethernet cable worked without any problems with the old TV box, it will continue to work without any problems with the TV-Box 21.

There is therefore no reason to replace the Ethernet cable that has already been hidden.

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@Werner wrote:

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If the already installed Ethernet cable worked without any problems with the old TV box, it will continue to work without any problems with the TV-Box 21.

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@Werner

I can’t agree with you 100%. There are always constellations where matching two interfaces with unsuitable cables does not work. If you operate something outside of the specs, this can “swallow” the interface of Box A and there will be problems when replacing it with Box B. I’ve even seen cases where gig interfaces using Fast Ethernet cables matched correctly in nine out of ten reboots and not in the tenth.

We also know this from split installations. The TV-Box worked without any problems for years, then it is replaced and problems arise and ultimately the split installation turns out to be the cause. Even then, customers often use the ineffective argument “it worked well for years and I didn’t change anything about the installation”. Because of my decades of troubleshooting experience, I have become very allergic to this saying.

Even if the old TV-Box worked perfectly for years, a Fast Ethernet cable would be a technical “time bomb” in the system that one should be aware of. That’s why my tip in post #5 is to just give it a try and, if there are any problems at some point, to pay attention to a possibly suboptimal cable when troubleshooting.

P.S.

Ethernet connections are anything but simple; I have been working on this topic/technology for several years, in theory, in the laboratory and also in the field.

@DonPedro53

If there are problems, it is best to temporarily lay a “flying” cable to isolate the problem, because not every problem has its origin in the cable.

Hello @DonPedro53 could an answer solve your problem? If so, you can mark the relevant post as a solution so that future thread readers can get to the solution more quickly. Thank you very much, kind regards, MirkoP