What Happens when a Cat5e cable Shorts Out?

[jland]

Is it possible that if a Linux in house mail server that connects to a switcher(in one room) and then to another switcher in the server room could cause a packet storm over the entire network if a Cat5e cable shorted out? Anyone EVER heard of anything like this happening?

 

[Mithrilhall]

Something along that line could happen I would think. Why not just change the cat5e cable and see what happens?

 

[jland]

We did replace the cable and it solved the problem, I was more curious if this was a common occurrence or if this is very unusual. Thanks for the Reply.

 

[JohnWill]

It's pretty unusual for a short to take place, but I've seen tons of cables with flaky connections at the connector.

 

[StumpedTechy]

Usually it depends on how the cable is 1) manufactured and 2) handled if its a manufacturing flaw then it could have been kinked in the sheathing upon purchase and any small movement would have caused a problem. If it was mishandled (streched, bent, twisted excessively) it can always cause problems even with the best quality line. Normally before using any ethernet line I'll test its continuity.

As far as a packet storm I could easily see that occuring if it was going from non the network to not on the network it could be generating alot of data to try and make up for the bad connection.