Yesterday I installed a new wireless router (linksys EA2700). The old router has a PCMCIA slot for a mobile broadband card (that is how we get internet at my rural location). Turned off its wireless feature, and daisy chained it to the new EA2700 like it was an internet modem. The EA2700 came with a 2 ft ethernet cable with the instructions to use it to connect the EA2700 to a modem. When making the connections, I noticed that this new blue ethernet cable was the right length to make a connection between the server and the router, replacing a long coiled cable that was currently in use. Then I used a short 1 ft cable to connect the two routers together.
Fired it all up, and everything was working fine. Could see the server shares from my laptop, had intenet connection, and about 6 other wireless devices in the house were working also. Except for the hard wired Western Digital Media Player (WDTVLIVEPLUS). It could not access network shares, and when accessing the media server folders, they were listed as being empty. I spent two hours trying to debug this problem thinking the problem was with the new router. Then it struck me. The WDTVLIVEPLUS listed the new router's wireless network, (named "Jarvis" after the computer in the Ironman movies), as a media server. That was weird... got me thinking that I buggered up the cable connections.... so I went to check the cables plugged into the new router but all looked correct.
Then I realized that a special "crossover" cable is typically used between router and modem. So I switch the the new cable from between the router and server and put it between the two routers, and BINGO! everything works.
Now, that was my fault, but I have to say in my own defense that every crossover cable I have ever owned was color coded yellow or orange. Regular ethernet cables are blue or green. So seeing as it was a blue cable, I thought nothing of using it somewhere else. Kind of annoyed at Cisco for this color coding screwup. All Cisco branded equipment I have owned came with yellow crossover cables. But they let their Linksys division break rank and use blue crossover cables. Go figure.
Oh well, now we have wireless N in the house for faster streaming off the server. All's well that ends well as they say. LOL!