How tough is network cable?

Bluecube

Bluecube

Bluecube

Soldato
Joined
20 Feb 2011
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4,409
Long story short - I’m having a terrible time networking my house and it’s only the first cable! I’ve treble, quadruple, quintuple checked the wires at both ends and I can’t see any problems with them.

Two nights ago the cable was working fine. Last night after I pushed the cable back into the wall so I could fix the wall plate, everything went down the drain - no connection, network tester saying multiple wires not connected.

The wire connections into the keystone look fine so I’m wondering if they’re snapping some way just out of sight down the cable hence my question - how tough are network cables? If it makes any difference, it’s a shielded cable I’m using
 
Brand is Kenable and the cores are copper.

The cable goes through three walls; one internal and two external. The bends aren’t sharp as I made sure of that
 
Back when I was wiring up my parents place in 15', I found that the cables are fairly decent and any issues not usually them being the problem. If anything, when I ran into a similar situation, it was because there was too much left over cable and so when I tried to hide as much into the box as possible, the strength and stiffness of the cable actually pulled the wires back out from the module on the plate. Although that was only one time.

So my suggestion is make sure you're not trying to clean up by hiding away another 10-15cm of slack for the ethernet network cable into the wall. I'd instead try to cut the excess and get closer that way so when you do try to hide away any excess cable that it doesn't pull the punched down wires from the module in the plate; either from too strong a cable, or too much of it.
 
Pushing it back in the wall won't have done anything unless you've been very unlucky and it snagged/tore on something, or you used excessive force and produced a very tight turning radius. Much more likely to be your terminations. Why don't you just terminate into standard RJ45 connectors each end to confirm the cable run is fine first before using wall plates?
 
pcfarrar said:
Why use shielded cable in a home environment its pretty pointless. You need to use shielded modules as well and they look like standard modules on your photos. If you don't ground the cable it will cause interference and degrade performance.
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The cable passes unavoidably close to electrical cables hence the shielding. Not sure about the faceplate but the connector is shielded too. Both pass grounding tests.

Punch down tool used
 
Bluecube said:
The cable passes unavoidably close to electrical cables hence the shielding.
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Even so 99.9% of time home electrical cables are a non-issue. Even in commercial environments we have bundles of standard UTP Cat5e running near to and generally around 3 phase electrical cable, and have never experienced any issues.

At 10Gb it becomes more of an issue, but by that point you're generally better off with fibre anyway.
 
Armageus said:
Even so 99.9% of time home electrical cables are a non-issue. Even in commercial environments we have bundles of standard UTP Cat5e running near to and generally around 3 phase electrical cable, and have never experienced any issues.

At 10Gb it becomes more of an issue, but by that point you're generally better off with fibre anyway.
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That’s good to know for next time! As it is I’ve got about 100m of shielded cable so unless that’s part of the problem I’m going to be using it for it a while
 
Never seen that type of 'connector cap' before, what brand is it?

Your wall port termination, missing the zip tie..

r50CDdO.png



I'd recommend the following..

CCS or Excel branded wall ports
TRENDnet TC-PDT (punchdown tool), it comes with Krone and 110 punchdown types. CCS wall ports use 110.
 
bledd said:
Never seen that type of 'connector cap' before, what brand is it?

Your wall port termination, missing the zip tie..

r50CDdO.png



I'd recommend the following..

CCS or Excel branded wall ports
TRENDnet TC-PDT (punchdown tool), it comes with Krone and 110 punchdown types. CCS wall ports use 110.
Click to expand...
No cap for that one. You punch down straight into it. I ripped the wiring out tonight after what Silicon Si said and tried again. Punch down this time round was far better, cleaner and the wire was the correct way round to use the cable tie. According to the cable tester, it’s an even bigger failure… I don’t think this end is the problem as it’s pretty straight forward. Either the cap isn’t seating properly at the other end or there’s a break in the cable somewhere. Might just rip the cable out and put a new one in to eliminate that possibility.
 
Did you fix it?

Bluecube said:
Back of connector cap
Click to expand...

I haven't used those connectors but this looks wrong to me, using either T568A or T568B pin 7 should = white / brown and pin 8 = brown, so why in the photo is the white/brown wire on the outside where I would expect pin 8 (brown) to be?




bledd said:
r50CDdO.png
Click to expand...

As others pointed out this isn't a good connection, the cable is from the wrong side, some of the pairs have been untwisted more than necessary, it han't been punched down very well, the cable tie is missing and its the wrong type of socket for shielded cable.

Using the punch down tool takes a bit of practice before you come proficient.


I've ran cat 5e and cat 6 near lighting and 3 phase power ducting in schools for 1Gb circuits without needing to use shielded cable but with the right correctly terminated ends your cable should be good for 10Gb, was the cable you picked UV resistent i.e rated for outdoor use so it will last longer?

Unless you crushed it when clipping it to the wall, damaged it with 90 degree bends where it went outside or something has chewed the cable I would have thought the way its terminated is more likely to be the issue.


If you can't get it working and don't want to pay someone to re terminate it then I'd probably just buy a long pre terminated cat 5e cable and use that instead.
 
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I've moved on considerably from those first attempts having tried three further cables and numerous connectors. While my crimping has improved considerably I've still not managed to get a connection with wires 1 and 2 repeatedly shorting no matter what cable I use. I suspect I need more practice so I'll just keep plugging away.

The cable reel I originally used and am now using another length from is UV resistant. It's not been crushed and there are no 90 degree bends as I was careful about that
 
Bluecube said:
wires 1 and 2 repeatedly shorting
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Any chance you are nicking the wires when removing the outter sheeth?

Tried putting a socket both ends instead of having an RJ45 plug on one end?

Very odd that theres a short between wires even if badly terminated it would then be open circuit.
 
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