Today I finally bit the bullet and got sick of the patchy wifi in the back bedroom. I have a Unifi UAP AC PRO downstairs, but my 2012 MacBook Pro is only 2x2 wireless N and the speeds are hit and miss (about 200Mbps on 5GHz).
I ordered 20m of external grade solid core cat5e, 2x dual port cat5e faceplates, a krone punchdown tool and some other bits and bobs (clips etc). After a couple of hours I'm happy to say that I have a very neat 2x cat5e cable run from downstairs, out of the rear wall, up the brick and into my bedroom at socket height. All punched down neatly, no mess, clipped tidily and it all looks very smart and 'professional'.
Here's a rough ASCII sketch to give you the idea of the new network layout. The forum removes white space, but as you may gather the sub-sections underneath the first line are feeding off the switches, with the second switch being plugged into the last port of the first to chain them together. Both switches are TP-Link gigabit metal cased ones.
<<Unifi AP>> --- <PoE switch> --- <Intel G4560, 4GB, router firewall> --- <VM SH3> --- <Internet>
|Desktop PC
|Printer
|3x 8MP/4k Hikvision CCTV cams
|Synology DiskStation
||||<Second switch>
|2x cable runs to upstairs via faceplate
|TiVO v6
|Smart TV
|ChromeCast
I was very pleased to finally have everything wired up. Once it was all done though, horror of horrors - the 'left' of the two ports doesn't work. If I connect to the 'right' of the two ports it connects almost instantly at 1Gbe and works flawlessly.
Nightmare scenarios running through my head, I removed the front plates and checked both boxes. All wires in the correct place, all seemingly punched down OK, nothing touching or warping the small PCB etc. I got my cable tester out and connected them to each end of the run (via pre-verified cables plugged into the ports). BOTH ports show all 8 cables are working. Yet one port doesn't give my laptop a connection!
The only possible clue is that when I test my normal pre-made cable (the one I plug from my MacBook Pro to the faceplate), all 8 lights glow in order as you'd expect. However when I run the tester through either of the two faceplate ports, all 8 lights glow BUT the order is all messed up. I didn't write the actual result down but it was something like 1, 5, 7, 2, 8, 4, 6, 3 (or whatever). All 8 do light up, for both ports, but as I said in a weird order. Both ports do the exact same, so it's not a dodgy punch down on the 'dead' port.
The faceplate itself has a strange order on the wiring sticker: Brown/White, Brown, Green/White, Green, Orange/White, Orange, Blue/White, Blue. That's the only option available even though there are four of the stickers on the PCB. I followed it and triple checked all the wires are as per the diagram, and that's all fine. The order isn't standard (for whatever reason), but still - one of the ports works perfectly anyway.
Since all 8 lights still fire up, it doesn't seem like a broken pair or cable? Yet the port is effectively dead. Could it just be as simple as a faulty faceplate module perhaps? Even then, I'd expect the lights on the tester to be dead, not firing. When I plug in the laptop to the 'dead' port, usually nothing happens but sometimes it cycles rapidly between connected/not connected/connected/not connected and it only says 100Mbps rather than 1Gbe.
It's not the end of the world, as one working cable is fine and after all it's part of the reason we run two at a time. I can always throw another switch upstairs if needs be in future. It's bloody annoying after all that hard work though! Does anyone have any clues as to why it's acting like this? Surely dead is dead, rather than random rapid cycling and 100Mbps connections then nothing. To my limited knowledge it's suggestive of a bad punch down but all looks good and the cable tester seems to dispute this. I'm lost. Answers on a postcard please.
I ordered 20m of external grade solid core cat5e, 2x dual port cat5e faceplates, a krone punchdown tool and some other bits and bobs (clips etc). After a couple of hours I'm happy to say that I have a very neat 2x cat5e cable run from downstairs, out of the rear wall, up the brick and into my bedroom at socket height. All punched down neatly, no mess, clipped tidily and it all looks very smart and 'professional'.
Here's a rough ASCII sketch to give you the idea of the new network layout. The forum removes white space, but as you may gather the sub-sections underneath the first line are feeding off the switches, with the second switch being plugged into the last port of the first to chain them together. Both switches are TP-Link gigabit metal cased ones.
<<Unifi AP>> --- <PoE switch> --- <Intel G4560, 4GB, router firewall> --- <VM SH3> --- <Internet>
|Desktop PC
|Printer
|3x 8MP/4k Hikvision CCTV cams
|Synology DiskStation
||||<Second switch>
|2x cable runs to upstairs via faceplate
|TiVO v6
|Smart TV
|ChromeCast
I was very pleased to finally have everything wired up. Once it was all done though, horror of horrors - the 'left' of the two ports doesn't work. If I connect to the 'right' of the two ports it connects almost instantly at 1Gbe and works flawlessly.
Nightmare scenarios running through my head, I removed the front plates and checked both boxes. All wires in the correct place, all seemingly punched down OK, nothing touching or warping the small PCB etc. I got my cable tester out and connected them to each end of the run (via pre-verified cables plugged into the ports). BOTH ports show all 8 cables are working. Yet one port doesn't give my laptop a connection!
The only possible clue is that when I test my normal pre-made cable (the one I plug from my MacBook Pro to the faceplate), all 8 lights glow in order as you'd expect. However when I run the tester through either of the two faceplate ports, all 8 lights glow BUT the order is all messed up. I didn't write the actual result down but it was something like 1, 5, 7, 2, 8, 4, 6, 3 (or whatever). All 8 do light up, for both ports, but as I said in a weird order. Both ports do the exact same, so it's not a dodgy punch down on the 'dead' port.
The faceplate itself has a strange order on the wiring sticker: Brown/White, Brown, Green/White, Green, Orange/White, Orange, Blue/White, Blue. That's the only option available even though there are four of the stickers on the PCB. I followed it and triple checked all the wires are as per the diagram, and that's all fine. The order isn't standard (for whatever reason), but still - one of the ports works perfectly anyway.
Since all 8 lights still fire up, it doesn't seem like a broken pair or cable? Yet the port is effectively dead. Could it just be as simple as a faulty faceplate module perhaps? Even then, I'd expect the lights on the tester to be dead, not firing. When I plug in the laptop to the 'dead' port, usually nothing happens but sometimes it cycles rapidly between connected/not connected/connected/not connected and it only says 100Mbps rather than 1Gbe.
It's not the end of the world, as one working cable is fine and after all it's part of the reason we run two at a time. I can always throw another switch upstairs if needs be in future. It's bloody annoying after all that hard work though! Does anyone have any clues as to why it's acting like this? Surely dead is dead, rather than random rapid cycling and 100Mbps connections then nothing. To my limited knowledge it's suggestive of a bad punch down but all looks good and the cable tester seems to dispute this. I'm lost. Answers on a postcard please.
