Interesting - now in the bad old days, you needed a special cable to connect two devices directly. These were called wrap cables by my organization and were typically color coded yellow. They are also called crossover cables. See http://sturtevant.com/technote/utpconnect.htm
See, unlike coax type ethernet, there are transmit wires and recieve wires in the RJ45 style 10/100Base-T connections. A typical (Typical - all of them) computer (Also called DTE (Data Terminal Equipment, or MDI) has an adapter that sends on pins 1 and 2, and receives on 3 and 6. Ethernet Hubs are wired as MDI-X - they receive on pins 1 and 2 and send on 3 and 6. A typical ethernet cable is wired straight through - an MDI port can't talk to an MDI port with a straight through cable - it can only talk to an MDI-X port - this means that a port on a computer needs to talk to a port on a hub, not a port on another computer, unless you have a wrap or crossover cable to connect them with. When you wire two hubs together, you connect an MDI-X (standard hub port) on one hub to the cascade (MDI) port on the other hub - or you use a wrap cable.
This is also why some hubs have so-called cascade ports, and when you wire two hubs together you wire to the cascade port- because the cascade port is wired like a computer, as MDI, not like the rest of the ports on the hub, as MDI-X.
There are about 4 ways what you suggest will work. The simplest is that you have a crossover cable which does the switching between 1/2 and 3/6 internally.
The next is that the Solo or HD is capable of sensing whether it is MDI or MDI-X and switching port modes on the fly. This is not impossible.
Another possibility is that your laptop has a port on it that is capable of switching between MDI and MDI-X. I've often wished for such a port on my laptop as it would be handy in solving a bunch of connectivity issues, or in being able to push the laptop into different places in the wiring so that I could sniff. A laptop could be built with multiple ports on it - a mini hub - and one of the ports could be MDI-X too.
The final is that you wired via a hub and left that step out. But if you wired via a hub, your procedure should work for any Slingbox, and not just the HD.
I am not sure why your procedure would not work for any slingbox if you simply used a wrap cable or used a hub and two wires to connect the computer and slingboxes together, so that the MDI ports on the computer and slingbox would be connected to the MDI-X ports on the hubs.
I wonder if you could turn on internet connection sharing on the interface you are attaching to the slingbox so that windows would run dhcp on the interface and assign an address.
How To Check Your Slingbox Solo or Slingbox PRO-HD Network Card
Categories: PRO-HD SOLO Networking & Connectivity
If you are having a problem getting a connection from your Slingbox to your network, here is a way you can check your Slingbox's internal network hardware.
Before you go through these steps you need to check the lights on the front of your Slingbox. If both the 'power' (right light) and the 'Network' (left light) are on solid, then you probably don't have a problem with your Slingbox. In this case you may need to do a hard reset of the Slingbox or your router.
If you can't get solid red lights or suspect you may have an internal hardware problem with your Slingbox, here is a way to test this.
Note: this 'trick' will only work with both a Slingbox Solo and a Pro HD. If you have a Classic, AV or PRO you will have to try something else.
Here is what you do.
- With the power unplugged from your Slingbox, first plug one end of an Ethernet cable to the Network port on your Slingbox. Then, plug the other end into the Ethernet port on your computer.
- Plug the Slingbox power adapter into an electrical outlet. Then hold down the RESET button on the back of the Slingbox for about 5 seconds (until the lights on the front start blinking).
- Wait about 2 minutes (sometimes longer) while the Slingbox tries to get an IP address. When the network light starts blinking again, you are ready to go. Your computer may come up and say limited network activity, but just disregard that.
- On your computer, open up the SlingPlayer program and then open your Slingbox directory by pressing Alt-D.
If everything works you should see a directory with one Slingbox lists as "My Slingbox"
If your box does not show up in the directory there may be a problem with the box and you may need to call Sling Support.
If it does show you an Unconfigured Slingbox then you are getting a connection to your Slingbox and your inability to connect through your router is proably caused by something else. You may need to reset your router, check your cables, or check your router for latest firmware or other network settings you may have.
But, at least you will know it's not the Slingbox!
As a side note while this is running you can even click on the "Edit" tab and retrieve information from your box like your Finder ID.
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I didn't connect a hub. If so would have mentioned it. It is also not because of a specific computer.
The wrap cable or crossover may work with the other boxes. Have not yet tried it.
BTW, there are ways to do this with the Sling Catcher that will allow you to use the projector and test a few other things.
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