Crossover cables and Connecting computers What’s the fastest way to connect two computers? Wireless internet? Not the fastest we say. Ethernet cabling is the fastest way of connecting PCs together. Whether it is your router or the central switch, Ethernet cabling or a crossover cable provides you the fastest way to connect. With it you can connect two computers without having to access to a network or without setting up an ad hoc network. Wireless networking has been a prevalent practice but the fact remains that wireless internet is still slow for anything high bandwidth. Also, one cannot ignore the fact that wireless internet is susceptible to interference. People use computers to store important data and to manage employee accounts. Massive spreadsheets, multiple files and folders are prepared to organize financial information. All this information is required to be internally shared. This is perhaps where one needs to understand networking and inter-connecting of computers. Who needs a cross-over cable? Anyone who needs to connect multiple PCs that are wired; anyone who wants faster, uninterrupted and smooth networking requirements, like a home where couple of friends wish to get together and play counterstrike or say a office where the data needs to be cross-shared and at the earliest possible, a cross-over cable is required. Some would want to connect using the wireless network but a wireless connection isn’t as fast as a Lan connection. A cross over cable is also referred as a null modem cable. Why do I need to connect two computers directly to each other? For playing a game competitively (one person at each computer) with fast response time For testing one computer by examining its behavior at the other computer For saving the cost of a hub when you want to interconnect two devices in the same home or office
What Is a Cross-Over Cable? A crossover cable is constructed by reversing (or crossing over) the order of the wires inside so that it can connect two computers directly. It looks exactly like a regular Ethernet cable. There are various kinds of cross over cables. Null modem cable, Ethernet crossover cable and a roll over cable. They can be used for the following connections: Switch to switch, Switch to hub, Hub to hub, Router to router, PC to PC and Router to PC. “However, a crossover cable can be used to connect two devices directly, without the need for a router in the middle. It simply reverses some of the pins so that the output on one computer is being sent to the input of another�