Help with Prewired Cat5e House

[impactplayer]

Hi everyone. I found this forum while I was trying to educate myself on the cat5e wiring in the house I just purchased, so please excuse my lack of posting history. With your help, I hope to learn more about networking and become a member of this community. Let me give you a little background on my issue, forgive the long-windedness.

I just bought a house that was prewired with Cat5e, supposedly for telephone and networking. Each room has a drop with cat5e ports and the master closet has a panel with a bunch of cat5e and coaxial cables. I'm trying to figure out how to use the drops in each room in order to facilitate file transfers and HD video streaming. However, it seems that the "prewire" job was left incomplete and that the cat5e wiring is not operational yet. The previous owner did not use the cat5e, so he has no idea how it works or whether it works.

Here is an album with pictures of the panel, cabling and drops: http://imgur.com/a/ftEub

I'm a novice with networking stuff, but it seems to me that the builder (a) did a really sloppy job and (b) did not terminate any of the cat5e cables at the panel so that the drops throughout the house would be usable. The wiring on the cables in the panel is either wrapped back up around each cable, ends in a circular plastic cap or ends in a bigger yellow cap (by the way, what are the circular plastic caps and big yellow caps in the pictures?). In order words, they are plugged into nothing. I think the solution is to terminate each cable at the panel with an RJ-45 connector, plug those connectors into a patch panel, then into a switch. Plug the router into the switch and I should have a working network where all the drops throughout the house will have Internet capability and be connected on the network. Does that sound right? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am pretty lost on this stuff.

 

[sinshiva]

hey, are you sure that that cat5 is meant to be used for ethernet? it's commonly used for phone wiring as well. from the pictures, it looks like phone. any of the pairs hot?

[edit/] i can see that you have rj45 outlets, but i am also seeing a lot of whiteblue/blue and whitegreen/green pairs going on, typical of multi-line phone. looks like you have your work cut out for you sorting through that mess. if the cat5 were meant for ethernet, it should terminate to a patch panel or something in that closet. or at least be a bunch of completely unterminated wires

can you open this up and take a picture of how the jacks are wired, i suppose it's possible this is where the center of the network is supposed to be; http://i.imgur.com/l52L0pq.jpg

 

[impactplayer]

hey, are you sure that that cat5 is meant to be used for ethernet? it's commonly used for phone wiring as well. from the pictures, it looks like phone. any of the pairs hot?

[edit/] i can see that you have rj45 outlets, but i am also seeing a lot of whiteblue/blue and whitegreen/green pairs going on, typical of multi-line phone. looks like you have your work cut out for you sorting through that mess. if the cat5 were meant for ethernet, it should terminate to a patch panel or something in that closet. or at least be a bunch of completely unterminated wires

can you open this up and take a picture of how the jacks are wired, i suppose it's possible this is where the center of the network is supposed to be; http://i.imgur.com/l52L0pq.jpg

The previous owner said it was wired for both ethernet and phone. Not sure if any of the pairs are "hot" (sorry, not sure what this means), how can I tell?

It may be that the blue cables were intended for ethernet, while the white are for telephone. I can take a closer look tonight. I'll open the panel tonight and take pictures of what is in there.

 

[sinshiva]

sorry, by 'hot' i mean is there current? ethernet uses all 4 pairs in the cable to work, so only the cables that are completely unused are available for ethernet

well, i think technically cat5 can get by on 2 pairs, but to use gigabit over it requires all 4. it sounds like the guy did something like use 2 pairs for ethernet which is kinda bleh

[edit/] like i said earlier, i think that quad outlet is supposed to be like the center of your network, distributed to the other areas of the house or something.

 

[mtrains]

The previous owner said it was wired for both ethernet and phone. Not sure if any of the pairs are "hot" (sorry, not sure what this means), how can I tell?

It may be that the blue cables were intended for ethernet, while the white are for telephone. I can take a closer look tonight. I'll open the panel tonight and take pictures of what is in there.

Typically they use the flat round plastic connectors in the patch panel for phone lines. It is not clear from the picture whether all the wires coming out of white cables are terminated in these round plastic connectors. If so I would say the white cables are your phone lines and the blue cables are your data cables. You may want to open up one of the RJ-45 drops and see what color cable is connected to it. You might be able to work backwards from there. You will need to invest in a few RJ-45 patch panel units to clean up the mess of wires you have there in the main patch panel. The builder should have done this

 

[impactplayer]

Typically they use the flat round plastic connectors in the patch panel for phone lines. It is not clear from the picture whether all the wires coming out of white cables are terminated in these round plastic connectors. If so I would say the white cables are your phone lines and the blue cables are your data cables. You may want to open up one of the RJ-45 drops and see what color cable is connected to it. You might be able to work backwards from there. You will need to invest in a few RJ-45 patch panel units to clean up the mess of wires you have there in the main patch panel. The builder should have done this

Thanks for your input, I was wondering what those flat plastic connectors were. Mostly all of the wires coming out of the white cables end in those flat plastic connectors. But there are a few white cables that have two pairs of wires wrapped back up around the cable (the other two pairs are capped off) or two pairs of wires are jumbled together under those two big yellow caps (the other two pairs are capped off again). If those flat plastic connectors are typically used for phone lines, would that mean that the RJ-45 drops that those white cables are tied to already work for phone service? As in, I would not mess with them if I wanted to use home phone in the house? Or do I need to get a different type of panel (from my research, seems like a 110 punch down block) in order to set up telephone capability? Probably dumb questions, but I am having trouble figuring out the answer with independent research.

Thanks for the help everyone. And I will follow both sinshiva and mtrains suggestion and get under those RJ-45 faceplates to look at the wiring and take pictures. Hoped to get to it last night but couldn't. Will try again tonight

 

[impactplayer]

I went in and uncovered three of the network faceplates in my house to see how the cables were terminated. Here are some pics: http://imgur.com/a/2XVGN

It appears that many of the cables were terminated using only two pairs, making them only capable of carrying phone right? Instead of data/networking (which would require all four pairs as I understand it). Is it easy to convert those so that I can use them for data/networking?

Also, my understanding is that when I terminate the master closet cables into the patch panel, I need to follow the same wiring standard that was used at the other end. For faceplate #1 in the pictures, how can I easily tell which wiring standard was used? Thanks for the help!

 

[Dreamslacker]

I went in and uncovered three of the network faceplates in my house to see how the cables were terminated. Here are some pics: http://imgur.com/a/2XVGN

It appears that many of the cables were terminated using only two pairs, making them only capable of carrying phone right? Instead of data/networking (which would require all four pairs as I understand it). Is it easy to convert those so that I can use them for data/networking?

Also, my understanding is that when I terminate the master closet cables into the patch panel, I need to follow the same wiring standard that was used at the other end. For faceplate #1 in the pictures, how can I easily tell which wiring standard was used? Thanks for the help!

Looks like the white cables are used for telephone and the blue cables are used for data.

Based on the pictures, the data keystones are terminated with 568A schema. You should terminate the patch panel end with the same scheme.

The telephone keystones are Cat 5e and you should not have a problem converting them to data points provided you are willing to invest some time and money.
To do so, you need to purchase a tone tester along with some shorting caps (screw terminal blocks work as well).
First, you need to cut off all the shorting caps in the distribution point (DP) for the white cables.
Plug the tone tester into the telephone point(s) that you want to convert and go to the DP to test each cable until you find the correct cable that corresponds to each point. Repeat this for all the points that you wish to convert.
Tracing the data points is optional but recommended so that you can label the patch panel accordingly. This will help with troubleshooting any issues as well.

To convert the telephone points, pull the wires off the keystone connector. re-wire the keystone with all 4 pairs. Follow the colour scheme printed on the side of the keystone for 568A. Do not leave excessive lengths of exposed pairs. This practice is fine for telephones but a bad idea for Ethernet.

When you are done, short the wires again for the remaining telephone cables together with the incoming telephone cable.

 

[stevech]

Phone outlets use cat3 cable and a smaller plug/socket than the RJ45 of ethernet.

10/100BT ethernet needs only 2 pair.
1000BT needs all four pair.

So not tying down all 4 pair was just to save time/money.

Standard telephone cords leading to a phone use RJ11 connnectors. So the white cables don't seem to me to be phone. I've not seen anyone hack up a cable to go from RJ45 on to a standard telephone.

 

[Dreamslacker]

Phone outlets use cat3 cable and a smaller plug/socket than the RJ45 of ethernet.

10/100BT ethernet needs only 2 pair.
1000BT needs all four pair.

So not tying down all 4 pair was just to save time/money.

Standard telephone cords leading to a phone use RJ11 connnectors. So the white cables don't seem to me to be phone. I've not seen anyone hack up a cable to go from RJ45 on to a standard telephone.

Looking at the earlier album, it does look like the white cables are also for data. However, it seems to me that the initial termination at the DP actually converted all the data drops into telephony use.
I've seen this happen often enough over here and have been involved in several of such projects to convert them into Data use.
Most of the time, the owner doesn't have an immediate use for the data drops and just has the cables run and installed with keystones for future proofing.
The electrician just shorts the pair(s) at the DP end and terminates them into the incoming telephony. This allows the points to be used for telephony up until the owner decides he wants data.

If you look at the later pictures (see picture #6), the white cable does indeed contain 4 pairs. In some of them, it seems that the electrician used a single cable to wire 2 keystones.
He can definitely convert those cables to do C5e but will only get 1 fully terminated data keystone instead of 2 (unless he's willing to settle for fast eth).
A faceplate replacement may be necessary with the reduction in number of points.

As for the use of C5e points as telephone, I do actually do that, a telephone 6P4C plug will fit just fine into an RJ45 socket. In fact, I wire Cat6 with Cat6 keystones and patch panels for offices these days. It allows the flexibility to switch between Data or telephony by simply swapping the cables at the patch panel end.
It also allows for upgrade paths for my customers (going from analog KTS/ PBX to VOIP) without requiring re-termination of cables.

 

[impactplayer]

Looking at the earlier album, it does look like the white cables are also for data. However, it seems to me that the initial termination at the DP actually converted all the data drops into telephony use...[T]he electrician just shorts the pair(s) at the DP end and terminates them into the incoming telephony. This allows the points to be used for telephony up until the owner decides he wants data.

Dreamslacker, thank you very much for your super informative posts. I followed just about every single thing you said and know what I need to do from here out. I have just a couple of questions about the quoted material above if you'll indulge me.

So when you say that the termination at the DP converted all data drops into telephony use - you mean that those little flat, round plastic caps in the pictures (I think what you also refer to as "shorting caps" below) right? So if I wanted to keep one of the RJ45 ports to use for telephone, I would basically just leave that pair that is capped at the DP alone? Because of the shorting cap, does it already work for phone service? Or is there another step that needs to be done (e.g., plug into a 110 punch down block) in order to have it be ready for phone service. I'm going to convert 99% of the cables into data/networking but want the ability to have just one port in the house be for telephone and I don't want to screw it up.

One final question for you, or anyone else reading this, the two yellow caps in pictures 3 and 4 here (http://imgur.com/a/DeTJX) - what are they? I took a picture of what is underneath one of the caps and it looks like a bunch of wires are twisted together. Why did they do that? And when I punch down all of the ethernet cables into the patch panel, can I just cut the wires further up the cable so that the twisted pile is removed?

Thanks for everyone's help, I have learned so much!

 

[mtrains]

One final question for you, or anyone else reading this, the two yellow caps in pictures 3 and 4 here (http://imgur.com/a/DeTJX) - what are they? I took a picture of what is underneath one of the caps and it looks like a bunch of wires are twisted together. Why did they do that? And when I punch down all of the ethernet cables into the patch panel, can I just cut the wires further up the cable so that the twisted pile is removed?

The first impression I had when I saw the yellow wire connectors was that this is a hack job But it looks like what you have there is the main distribution point where your incoming telephone line from the street is connected to all the wires that go to each room where you have a telephone drop. You can confirm this by identifying the incoming telephone line and seeing whether the each wire from that goes into one of these connectors. If you use a proper telephone patch panel that ugly mess can be removed. You will be just plugging in the incoming telephone line into the RJ11 plug in the patch panel and the wires to each room will terminate on each of the terminal strips on the telephone patch panel. Sorry, I am not a field technician. So I don't know the proper terms for these.

But anyway, once you have all the wires in the main patch panel terminated into a telephone patch panel unit or ethernet patch panel unit you will not need those yellow wire connectors.

 

[azazel1024]

Phone outlets use cat3 cable and a smaller plug/socket than the RJ45 of ethernet.

10/100BT ethernet needs only 2 pair.
1000BT needs all four pair.

So not tying down all 4 pair was just to save time/money.

Standard telephone cords leading to a phone use RJ11 connnectors. So the white cables don't seem to me to be phone. I've not seen anyone hack up a cable to go from RJ45 on to a standard telephone.

If you mean hack up a Cat5e for a standard telephone, I've seen it before. Heck, its what I did in my house. I had BOATLOADs of Cat3 running through my house for both phone and an ancient security system, but nothing in my kitchen where I wanted to put my phone. I ran some cat5e from the posts in my basement, which was convenient right below my kitchen, up to a new box that I put in and connected it to an RJ11. You could in theory wire an RJ45 to accept and RJ11 plug too, but it is rather bastardized way to do it, and I personally wouldn't.

I agree with what most everyone else has said in terms of the installation.

The only thing I would say is, depending on just how many wires we are talking, I'd consider just getting a switch and connecting everything to it in the wiring closet instead of bothering with a patch panel. Just extra expense unless you don't plan on hooking up many of those cat5e cables at any given time.

A 32 port patch panel might run $45-65, where as a dump 16 port GbE switch might run you $70-80. Just going with a dumb 32 port GbE switch instead might run you $150, or about the same price as a 16 port + larger patch panel. Alternately, you can just leave unconnected the wires you don't plan on using anytime soon and go with the smaller switch.

To each his own, but as I've been wiring my house (1961 rancher) I haven't bothered with a patch panel, just running them all right to my 16 port managed switch. Sadly I am down to 3 ports free, and I'll have used them all up before I am done with this house. So either I've gotta hook in my 8 port unmanaged switch, get a larger 24 port managed switch (which should be large enough to handle everything, I didn't anticipate putting in as many drops as I have/will), or else get another managed switch to go along with the current one and maybe bond a couple of ports together between them (I am thinking the latter).

 

[impactplayer]

The first impression I had when I saw the yellow wire connectors was that this is a hack job But it looks like what you have there is the main distribution point where your incoming telephone line from the street is connected to all the wires that go to each room where you have a telephone drop. You can confirm this by identifying the incoming telephone line and seeing whether the each wire from that goes into one of these connectors. If you use a proper telephone patch panel that ugly mess can be removed. You will be just plugging in the incoming telephone line into the RJ11 plug in the patch panel and the wires to each room will terminate on each of the terminal strips on the telephone patch panel. Sorry, I am not a field technician. So I don't know the proper terms for these.

But anyway, once you have all the wires in the main patch panel terminated into a telephone patch panel unit or ethernet patch panel unit you will not need those yellow wire connectors.

Thanks mtrains! I think I've got everything I need now. Seems like I will just purchase something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-...-Module-with-Bracket-R02-47689-00B/100479532#. I will plug the incoming phone line from outside into this panel, and then punch down any cat5e cables that I want to use for voice into this module.

 

[mtrains]

Thanks mtrains! I think I've got everything I need now. Seems like I will just purchase something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-...-Module-with-Bracket-R02-47689-00B/100479532#. I will plug the incoming phone line from outside into this panel, and then punch down any cat5e cables that I want to use for voice into this module.

Yes. That will work. You will also need something like this http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EHW88Q/?tag=snbforums-20 to punch down your data cables. If you can find one that is made by the same manufacturer as the one who made your main panel it will just snap right into the holes in the main panel.

 

[impactplayer]

Yes. That will work. You will also need something like this http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EHW88Q/?tag=snbforums-20 to punch down your data cables. If you can find one that is made by the same manufacturer as the one who made your main panel it will just snap right into the holes in the main panel.

Thanks mtrains. I had picked up a trendnet patch panel for the data cables, but thanks for the suggestion. I just bought all of the stuff yesterday so I am hoping to spend a few hours each night this week working on it. I'll let you all know how it goes!

 

[impactplayer]

I hope you all were not eagerly anticipating my return. It took me longer to get to this project than I expected. But I finished it! Here are the details.

I bought a tracer tool and was able to trace all the ethernet wires to drops in the house. Then I pulled the drops back and converted telephone drops into ethernet drops with new keystone jacks and faceplates in some cases. Then I punched down all the cables in the panel to a patch panel, then used short patch cables to connect to a switch. I also bought a telephone module and punched down the telephone cable coming from outside the house into that and punched down another cable for phone at our preferred drop in the house. And that was it! Now I have a gigabit wired connection through the house and have already been enjoying its use with my NAS, HTPC, and so on.

It wasn't as hard as I had expected. It took me maybe 3-5 hours total, spread across a few days. I tested everything and did not appear to make any mistakes so that's always good. Thanks to everyone in this thread that helped teach me this stuff, I couldn't have learned it without you all. Here are some pictures of the finished result: http://imgur.com/a/XqIWq. I know it isn't the neatest panel out there, but I think it's a significant improvement over what was in there before!