Five PCs hooked into a LAN and an additional Cat 5e cable. Plug into the Cat 5 and "Cable not plugged in" Why?

Question

When I plug into the Cat 5 cable, the adjacent two PCs are knocked offline. This LAN worked fine until two weeks ago, when the modem's power supply shorted out and my ding-dong boss fixed it. All five PCs work fine other wise. It's only when I plug a laptop into the extra Cat 5 cable that it knocks the adjacent PCs offline and the laptop just keeps attempting to acquire a connection. I appreciate anyone's help!

Answer 1

I would first try unplugging the other PCs and see if the laptop works by itself. If it does I would plug in the PCs one by one until something happened. At that point you may blame the modem for not supporting power to all.

If the laptop alone doesn't work then you know what's causing the problem. I would then change the laptop's cable.



What you need to do is to decrease the variables so that you can identify the problem in this case.

Answer 2

Consider the possibility that the router also took a hit since the modem would have been connected to the lan at the time.

Answer 3

Check the power rating, voltage, and current (if provided) of the power supply. Then check the power rating, voltage, and current (if provided) of the now failed power supply. If you no longer have the power supply, contact the maker to see what the power rating, voltage, and current (if provided)should be for the power supply.



Power rating is in watts or milliwatts. Voltage is in volts DC, current is in Amps or Milliamps.



The voltage must be the same as the maker states. The power rating in watts can be higher than the maker's minimum criteria. The current rating in amps or milliamps can be higher than the maker's minimum criteria.



I suspect the replacement power supply is below the minimum need.