swith cascading and no vlan to vlan connection

[t80243280]

Hi,

Here's is my schema.

I am a noob in vlan and stuff..just starting listening dans course on youtube.

Internet -- Modem -- rooter/FW ---wire1--- SW1(2960(24porte)) ---wire 2---- SW2(2960(48 porte))--wire 3---SW5 (non VLAN - 8 port switch)-- PC1

                                                        |

                                                        |---wire 4 ---SW3(3com (48 porte))---wire 5 ---- AP wifi

I connect the up link of SW3 to the down link SW1 using a straight cable and the port get the orange color (like 10Mb) ? should be 1Gb port !!..something i missed ^^

1) How we normally connect switch between them (up,down,normal port) and should i use straight or cross cable for wire 1,2,3,4 and 5 (in my example) ?

2) let say SW2 as 2 VLAN 20 (port 10-15) and VLAN 40 (port 16-20) in access mode), and it s connect to SW1 through trunked port (port 1 on  SW2 and port 1 on SW1)...SW5 is connected to SW2 port 11 . Does PC1 belong to VLAN20 ? 
SW5 is only part of the default VLAN 1 as it is a non vlan switch ? or is there something like inheritance between dump 8 port switch and the other Layer 2 switch (like my 2960)?

thanks for help

[Vasilii Mikhailovskii]

Hello.

Running port speed depends on port settings and cable you are using.

Orange could indicate that STP is blocking port.

1)

Newer (latest) switches support auto-mdix, but typically switches could be interconnected with crossover cable.

Router (and end-hosts) should be connected to switch by straight through cable.

2) PC1 belongs to VLAN 20 (in terms of SW2/SW1) if SW2 port 11 is configured with "swi mode access + swi acc vl 20"

If you do not configure interface with "swi mode access", then it's possible that switches negotiate trunk; if SW5 is inaware of 802.1q, then it's not your case.

[devils_advocate]

The 2960 switch should be able to do Auto-Mdix which effectively allows you to use either a straight through or a crossover and achieve the same result.

The LED's can mean different things depending on which mode you have selected on the switch itself.

You need to console to SW1 and look at the status of the port.

#show int status

This should show the port as connected and will list the current speed and duplex.

You can connect two switches together using either an Access Point (Single Vlan) or a Trunk Port (Multiple Vlans). The Cisco switches you have support 802.1Q trunking but you will need to check if the 3COM and the Non Vlan switch do.

If you are just starting out in Networking, I would advise using a more simple topology as the one you have above with multiple vendors may confuse things as terminology can be different between them.

Start off with your 2x 2960 switches, create some vlans, bring up a trunk port between them and make sure hosts can communicate with hosts in their own vlan between the switches,

Then move onto connecting other vendor switches.