Auto-MDIX was starting to become the norm on nicer hardware when GbE started gaining adoption, and the MDI layer of GbE effectively obsoletes the concept of MDIX by specifying that pairs must always be probed. This was sort of required due to GbE requiring four pairs while Fast Ethernet required two, it is sort of expected that a GbE interface will encounter improper cables and it needs to detect that to degrade to Fast Ethernet.
So for GbE it's all but guaranteed, for Fast Ethernet it depends on how much money the device vendor was willing to spend on the interface, basically. Later laptops should be pretty reliable.
Or course none of this has anything to do with Windows, it all happens at a hardware level which can sometimes make investigating problems a bit painful.
So for GbE it's all but guaranteed, for Fast Ethernet it depends on how much money the device vendor was willing to spend on the interface, basically. Later laptops should be pretty reliable.
Or course none of this has anything to do with Windows, it all happens at a hardware level which can sometimes make investigating problems a bit painful.