Network fault help

[sirp]

Hi,

A bit of advice please.
I have had networking installed in the house a couple of months ago. All has been well until the other day. My PC ethernet just stopped working.

My connection from the the PC is an ethernet wall socket (one of about 16 in the house), running Cat 6 cable back to a patch panel and then finally Into my switch. All other points in the house work.

What I have done so far:

Changed the patch cable (did not fix)
Borrowed a tester to find out I have no signal on either end of the cable ( at wall and latch panel)
Tested switch ports, all fine.
Removed ethernet socket off wall, cables look connected fine.

I then moved my pc to connect to another socket a metre away. Did not work. I used cable tester here to find out one out of the 8 lights not lighting. ( I have yet to take this one off the wall to look at it)

All a bit odd as no cables or equipment has been touched since install.

Could it be possible that a rodent has eaten my cable?
Can ethernet sockets or patch panel connections suddenly die?

Now, I do not have any network equipment to take cables off and reconnect. Is this the option I should be asking someone to do (I am waiting to here back from the installer). Is there anything else I can be doing myself?

Cheers

 

[V F]

Could it be possible that a rodent has eaten my cable?

It's possible. A mouse did it to my CCTV cables in the loft and they were heavily sheathed. The image was all double vision and distorted then found teeth marks on the cable exposing parts of the broken wires. That was fun and games routing the new cable in through the loft again.

Not saying yours is but you'll have to inspect the cable for sure. I remember once finding a mouse inside one of the double plug sockets. Don't ask me how it got there. They can get into the weirdest places you think isn't possible.

 

[sirp]

Cheers for the response. I am really hoping something else has gone wrong, but somehow I might have to get under the floor to check I bet. I've never had cables fail apart from connectors before. I was hoping someone would say patch panels can be faulty, but I don't think they can be really as they are just metal contacts aren't they?