Cat6 Ethernet Over Length

Rob_F

Rob_F

Rob_F

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Joined
8 Oct 2013
Posts
15
Greetings,

As my first post on this forum, I come to you with a question. To summarise, I will be setting up a small home server for projects and such in the garage. The only wired access point via Ethernet for this is at the other side of the house. Due to this I have ran a 50m Ethernet cable around the house to get to the router. Once I connect the machine, it seems to be not receiving any kind of signal through the cable. I have tried connecting the cable to my laptop and it is all working perfectly and the lights on the ports on both end are flickering. When I go to connect this back to the server machine the lights on the Ethernet port do not light up on both the router and the machine. I was thinking that the machine is not capable of outputting enough power to the cable to send the signal through it, as it's using a built-in Ethernet adapter in an old Foxconn motherboard. I was thinking of trying a PCI Ethernet card and seeing if that does the trick? Last of all, It's not a 'server machine' so to speak. More of an old computer being used for server purposes.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for me, fire away, they will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance :)
 
You certainly aren't over length with the cable; you should be fine to at least 100m (assuming it isn't junk Cat6e or some other cheap under spec'd cable).

There's no reason why an on-board NIC would cause you any problems unless it's faulty. Presumably the NIC does work with a shorter cable?
 
does the server work with another cable plugged into the router, a 3m cable or short cable? if it does, have you any sharp bends in the cable that are "un-bended" when you put it the laptop?

you sure the ethernet adapter has the right drivers and is actually enabled?

50m is nothing for cat6 cable length wise
 
The server does work with a 5m ethernet cable and there are no sharp bends that are un-bended when it's plugged into the laptop. It has all the right drivers etc. I can only presume it's the crappy quality motherboard's onboard NIC at this point.

If anyone has any other ideas, that would be helpful. For the time being I will see if I can grab a PCI NIC and see what happens.
 
Has clocka has already said, 50m is nothing for CAT 6 cable lengthwise. When connecting using your laptop what speed does it connect at? For a 1Gbps connection all eight wires are required while connection at 100 Mbs requires only 4 wires. Is the NIC in the server set to auto negotiate connection speed or is set to connect at only 1Gbps?
 
I believe CAT5 is rated for just under 100m, not that you'd realistically run that much.

Might be a dodgy/fake cable? where did you buy it from? but if your running lengths like that it should probably be STP rather than UTP.

I've run 30m lengths of cat5e (STP) with no issues before.

CAT6 should by definition be more robust than that.
 
The requirement for screened cable isn't linked to it's length. UTP Cat5e or Cat6 will both handle Gigabit at 100m. If it doesn't work at 100m (or beyond) then it's either badly installed or out of spec.
 
I'm assuming the router isn't set up in such a way to exclude any unknown devices not to be able to connect although that may only relate to wireless.
 
Steveocee said:
This sounds like it could be the answer
Click to expand...

Particulary if one or more of the eight wires within the cable is open circuit. OP needs to test the cable for continuity and correct pin-out before he goes any further. An ethernet cable tester can be add for peanuts from fleebay or in the jungle.
 
Righty, thanks for the feedback. Grabbed another cable and I'm using an old powered switch on both ends of the cable. Seems to do the trick.
 
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