why a standard ethernet cable worked when a patch cable didn't

[Wade Shearer]

PLUG,

I hope you can help me understand this. I use an AirPort Extreme Base Station. For more ethernet ports than the three it provides, I connected a Linksys 5-port Workgroup Switch. This worked great.

To expand my network capacity, today I replaced the Linksys switch with a Cirsco 16-port switch (SR2016). This didn't work great. None of the clients on the network could see the router. 

It turns out that it was the cable that I was using to connect the switch to the router. It works with the Linksys switch but not with the Cisco switch. After I replaced the cable with a different (black, unmarked) one, everything worked.

This is what is printed on the cable:

BELKIN COMPONENTS CATEGORY 5e PATCH CABLE #R7J304 VERIFIED (UL) CAT 5e 4PR 24AWG TYPE CM OR MP E129760-C


What's unique about that cable or about the Linsys switch that they work together?


Wade