I have a brand new GL-MT6000 Flint 2 and mostly everything is working. But I have an old device with 100Mb/s Ethernet and when I plug it in it fails to connect. The Ethernet port on the router doesn't even seem to see that anything's connected and the device says no Ethernet.
I've tried various firmwares and cables and nothing changes. It's like a physical incompatibility though I've never experienced that with Ethernet before. Is it maybe failing to negotiate because it's so old?
OK now you're asking. I'll get on it. I also had a brainwave - I have an old switch somewhere and I can try interposing that in the link and see what happens. Cool - thanks for the help so far.
logread
Thu May 23 09:17:57 2024 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'lan4' link is up
Thu May 23 09:17:57 2024 kern.info kernel: [ 8175.079759] mt7530-mdio mdio-bus:1f lan4: Link is Down
Thu May 23 09:17:57 2024 kern.info kernel: [ 8175.085084] br-lan: port 4(lan4) entered disabled state
Thu May 23 09:17:57 2024 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'lan4' link is down
dmesg
[ 8174.249232] mt7530-mdio mdio-bus:1f lan4: Link is Up - 100Mbps/Full - flow control rx
[ 8174.257098] br-lan: port 4(lan4) entered blocking state
[ 8174.262319] br-lan: port 4(lan4) entered forwarding state
[ 8175.079759] mt7530-mdio mdio-bus:1f lan4: Link is Down
[ 8175.085084] br-lan: port 4(lan4) entered disabled state
I also connected through a cheap switch and it works. So connecting the device directly to the router and the port goes down immediately but via the switch everything works.
Sorry I don't know what "MDI-X" is and I don't have a crossover cable. The old device is supposed to support crossover but I also thought it was 100 whereas, as I mentioned, I can only get it working at 10 and with the negotiation off. Since I have it working this is not so urgent but I guess it would be cool to find out why it doesn't negotiate correctly.
This is what it says in the really old spec for the device back when 10Mbps was a thing: "100Mbps throughput; Shielded CAT5 RJ-45 connector; Connects to any 100Mbps or 10Mbps network; Auto-detects full duplex and half duplex modes; Automatic receive polarity correction"
It's a newer standard that automatically detects network crossovers; I think the idea was you don't need crossover cables anymore- but what I was getting at was I think (i.e., don't quote me ) was that back in the day there were "device" ports and "switch" ports and you couldn't just connect two older Ethernet devices together, so they came up with MDI-X- so maybe your old device thinks the wires are crossed so only 10-BaseT works?
Just a guess on my part, but now I'm curious to see if a crossover can fix that so we'll all know
) was that back in the day there were "device" ports and "switch" ports and you couldn't just connect two older Ethernet devices together, so they came up with MDI-X- so maybe your old device thinks the wires are crossed so only 10-BaseT works?