Home Wiring Debacle

[Debug]

Home was pre-wired with Cat5e, no wall jacks and just dangling cables in a small panel in the laundry room.

Bought some cable/data combo wall jacks, installed and punched the wires. Put some ends on the cables and plugged them into a small switch in the panel in the laundry room.

Ran the router to a wall jack and then down to the switch.

Some rooms had gigabit, some were stuck on 10/100mb.

I tried cables, different nic cards, etc. No deal.

So I replaced the ends on the cables in the laundry room. Fixed one room! Weird.

Finally pulled the jack and re-wired/punched. Fixed another room. Weird again.

The last room I rewired/punched the jack AND put yet another new end on the cable. Finally got them all working.

My question is why the heck! I wired everything A, checed it like 5 times, punched the jacks firmly, crimpped the ends well...

Just boggles my mind that it was so finiky... I have built a ton of cables in my time, but that was my first time installing a jack, but honestly it's not that hard.

I checked the wiring on the jacks before redoing them and they were wired correctly for A.

Any ideas why it was so touchy? I finally got it all working, but should I redo it all for piece of mind? Maybe my OCD is getting the best of me.

Thanks in advance!

 

[coxhaus]

If it's working don't mess with it. Just fix the ones that don't work.

 

[Debug]

Is there a difference between T568A and T568B for data?

 

[coxhaus]

Yes. Use 1 or the other. A T568A and a T568B makes a cross over cable.

 

[dosborne]

Most of the time it comes down to the quality of the product. Even the quality of the punch 5ool can make a big difference. If you make a lot of cables and install jacks with any kind of regularity, then invest in a good quality test unit that can identify these sorts of issues.

My main problem in the past was using cheap connectors. I'd have to redo about 10%.

 

[ddaenen1]

A other thing to think about is the the jacks you use. Are they also Cat 5E or Cat6? I have had issues mixing both as the gauge of Cat6 had issues with the Cat5E patch panel and vice versa, Cat5 did make good contact. Just something to consider.

Typically, if you get 100Mbps on a 1Gbps line, one of the wires is either not punched through properly or miswired. I agree with Dosborne. Especially on the connectors. I now only use high-quality connectors with guides. I also had cheapos in the past. MAkes a world of difference.