Garden office ethernet cable not working since switch to Vodafone broadband

[MondayRunner]

Hi, wonder if anyone can help with my problem as it is driving me crazy.

We recently switched to Vodafone broadband from BT and have the latest WiFi Hub router.

We've got internet setup in the garden office via a cat5 cable that runs from the house through the garden into the office, where there's a wall socket. We then use another cable to connect it to a laptop.

Now before with BT this worked fine but with Vodafone it's suddenly stopped working and the culprit looks likely to be the router.

So my question is, is there anything in this setup which would cause a malfunction in the Vodafone WiFi hub?

[Anonymous]

There shouldn't be!  It's worth checking the clips that hold the ethernet cables in place (cheap ones snap easily).  The only other thing that I can think if is so silly that I almost dare not say it....  Back in the old days you used to get regular ethernet cables and crossover cables.  On almost every piece of consumer equipment that I've seen for years now, they are auto-sensing, but with all the other botches on the VF modem/router, I kind of wouldn't be surprised if it isn't.  I guess there's also the possibility that electrically the VF router isn't pumping enough signal into the cable, but unless the run is more than 100m it should be just to remain in spec!