Splitting a single Cat 5 into 2. HELP

akirru

akirru

akirru

Permabanned
Joined
10 Jun 2006
Posts
320
Location
Scotland, Edinburgh
Ok I have both my xbox and xbox 360 hooked up at the moment and I run a single network cable into my room. I like to have them both hooked up as I use the 360 for live and the xbox (which is modded) to stream media like divx too.

My dilemma is this, every time I want to use one or the other I have to manually change the network cable. Some might say what is the problem, well its just annoying and plus I'm concerned I might damage the ports on the consoles if I keep changing the cable over.

Is there a device to split the cable? Then I could plug two cat 5 in the other side so both consoles would be connected. I only use one console at a time.

Andy
 
you can literraly split the cables, using 2 pairs for each but this is not advised.

A cheap hub or switch will do the job, for such a simple task i would check ebay should be able get something for under £10 delivered
 
Ah,

Yeah I think I should have explained the situation a bit better ..hehe

I have a Router atm

There are 3 pc's connected to it and the 4th input is being used by the 360 or the xbox.

Now is there any way of separating the cable leading to the 360 withough physically splitting the cable?
 
assumed you had a router anyway :D

get a cheap hub...

may need to use a crossover cable from the router to the hub or more probable there will be an uplink switch on the hub for one of the ports for use with a standard network cable


----------------------xbox
router---------hub
----------------------x360
 
By cheap 8 port switch, then plug everything into that including the router.

that's pretty much what i do at home

plus it gives some scope for additional devices :)
 
There shouldn't be any problem with having a 4 port switch built into your router (which you have currently) and adding a further switch on to that. Switches are better than hubs and if you get a decent one (still cheap) it has port sensing so you can use any cat 5. I have a 4 port Bilion router, plus a £12 Netgear 4 port switch. All good.
 
Last edited:
At work we've occasionally used little ethernet splitters, not really recommended, but they are a plug to go into an RJ45 scket and from this plug on two short runs of cat5 you get two more RJ45 scokets. You are not splitting the cable but doubling a port at the hub/router/switch. Since you seem to imply you are only going to use one of the two devices at once this shouldn't be a problem.
 
Yep, go for a switch.

I have my router downstairs, a cat5e running all the way upstairs (4 floors, lol) and into a switch, which then has my computer and two Xbox 360's plugged into it. All fine, no problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom