I am attempting to learning CCNA on my own and I have no experience in networking prior to this. I tried to connect a pc and a router (generic router) in Packet Tracer directly but the link between the devices displayed red dots. The status of both the ports Fa0 and Fa0/0 shows "Link down". I used a copper straight through cable to connect both the devices. I also used the "no shut" command after logging into the router's interface command line but it made no difference.
I then set up the same network using a switch to connect the same pc and router and it worked. So what am I doing wrong when using just the pc and the router arrangement?
I am using packet tracer 7.0
Best Answer
You'll need a crossover cable to connect two MDI devices without auto-crossover. The switch presents MDI-X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-dependent_interface