network - switch question

[m_daize]

i saw something happen where i was today...

what is an unmanaged switch for?

the reason im asking isbecause this person did the following, and i wondered what happened:

had a crossover cable...
plugged BOTH ends into different ports on the unmanaged switch
took a lan cable plugged the uplink on the switch directly into the local network
then with his laptop plugged into this network (not the switch), pinged the server...

what would happen in this situation???
please elaborate on any details... im really not that knowledgable into networking

[pave_spectre]

An unmanaged switch is the most basic type of switch. It provides no ability to configure its behaviour or set up things like VLANS. You simply plug your computers in and forget about it until there's a problem.

Plugging both ends of the same cable into a switch shouldn't do anything, since a switch will only send information out ports that it knows an active machine is connected to.

An uplink port would normally be used to connect to another switch but can be used to connect a computer if you use the right type of cable.