found a weird cable

jackofalltrades

jackofalltrades

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 7, 2006
Messages
3,741
I have this USB cable with a cat 5 plug on the other end, my question is what could it be used for?
I have never seen one before it was in a sealed bag not home made.
 
Some UPS units use a cable like that for data transfer. I have also used a cable like that with a converter box in the middle that was a USB - console (serial) cable. Don't see too many of those, though.
 
I had something like this used on a APC UPS for the control and monitoririg software connection to the PC.
 
Yeah sounds like some kind of serial connection but instead of using a serial port it uses USB. Might even be for a Cisco router or something though not sure if Cisco uses that. Definitly APCs as mentioned.
 
jackofalltrades said:
I have this USB cable with a cat 5 plug on the other end, my question is what could it be used for?
I have never seen one before it was in a sealed bag not home made.
Click to expand...

APC UPS's used this (and still do) to link the computer to the UPS so that in the event of a power outage, the UPS could continue to provide power until it automatically shut down the computer in a controlled manner rather than just letting the power go off and result in a hard reset. (Something definitely nice to have in the old days when journaled File Systems weren't as robust.)

I have a few of those cables still, for some reason...:confused:
 
You may also find that the RJ45 looking end is 10 pins, not the usual 8...there may also be a little tab sticking out of the side of the plug, presumably to stop it being shoved into a NIC or switch/router etc.
 
I've seen some USB over Cat5e/Cat6 extensions. Could be one of those?
 
Tim_H said:
I've seen some USB over Cat5e/Cat6 extensions. Could be one of those?
Click to expand...

Those usually require powered "black boxes" on each side right? I assume they work by sending the USB data over TCP/IP.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top