Subject - crossover cable

ReplyPosted : (Tuesday 15th January 2008 ) By - bigdayinthenorth (Unregistered User) ok i'm trying to connect two pc's via crossover cable (one i have made) i will be buying one off ebay soon 15 meters
the OS's are winxp service pack 2
and windows ME (the old eastserve pc)
now on my xp system there is a cat5 socket (or as i asume ? )on the mother board (next to sound sockets and usb's etc)
and on the old eastserve ME system there are 3 cat5 sockets 2 are in a the dial up modem card(picture of telephone and something else on the card and a seperate card with 2 led's with the words "link and act" next to them .. now i asume this is the cat5 to connect to ?? if not please inform me ..
ok so the main questions are
1) is this the right socket to connect to on the ME system and why arnt the lights lighting up ??
2) would the socket on the xp system be the correct socket as there is only one and it's on the mother board ? (there is a local area connection in my network places. but has the error " a network cable is unplugged" i asume this is because of the cable i have made is a bit of a cowboy job although i have swithched one end to make a crossover via instructions ..
my eastserve connection is fine and is in network connections..
i have the basic grasp of a manual setup .. but will wait till i get a proper cable.. to test properly .. but do the connection ports on bith systems sound ok for this to work ??
if i had made this post abit confusing please ask the Q's and i will answer as best i can