Cisco: connecting the old with the new

I spend as much time working with older network gear as I do the new stuff. On a recent project I found myself needing to connect an old Cisco 2950G with a new Cisco 3750E and was running into issues getting the duplex settings configured correctly.

To keep a long story short I headed out with my crossover cable as I often do, connected the two switches together and could not get the two switches to run the same duplex without CRC errors.

Turns out a standard patch cable and the assistance of auto mdix on the 3750e is all you need.

On the 2950G I did the following
int fa0/1
speed auto
duplex auto

On the 3750E I did the following
int gig 1/0/1
speed auto
duplex auto
mdix auto

Suddenly I have two error free interfaces running 100/Full.

If you have run into this issue, you might want to give this a shot, it has worked for me every time I have tried it since stumbling onto this.