Question : Can you use a patch cable to connect a laptop wifi to a desktop?
is it possible to use a patch cable instead of a cat5 crossover cable to connect my laptops wifi to my desktop?
patch cable

Best answer:

Answer by Joe
Don’t know specifically what you mean by connect your laptop wifi to your desktop but that doesn’t matter. It all comes down to Ethernet and how the hardware works and the answer is sometimes. If you have an Ethernet NIC or an Ethernet Device (router, wifi, whatever) that supports Auto-MDIX then you can use either cable and the device will auto detect and switch the pins to act as a crossover when connected to a patch cable or to patch if connected to a cross over. If both have Auto-MDIX this still works fine.

If neither one does have Auto-MDIX then you can actually make an ad hoc crossover cable pretty easily. cut a wire in half and strip back some of the outer cover until you see 4 pairs of twisted wires. Strip back the green and orange pair of wires on each end. Connect green/white to orange/white and green/solid to orange/solid. Don’t worry about blue and brown as they are not used in 10base-T or 100base-T.

P.S.