Debugging a Home Cat5 Installation

You need a tone generator or a nest Network to Ditch all of it.

I have used many a tone generator and probe.

I meant to say a mesh network, not nest.

The mesh network is less money and hassle than the wired system.

I used to buy dozens of boxes of Cat-5 / 5e & 6 at a time.

If your network box is wired wonky, the routing in the walls as well as the condition of the cable is in question.

One bad cable where you want it means you need a wireless network anyhow.

After some research.. We went with mesh.

It's nice to use the network in the garage, or the yard, or.. you get the picture.

Also good for wireless cameras.

OR

Just tie two wires together in a cable and test the continuity of the wires in each room until you get continuity, then label them up in the room and at the location, make a list for a master wiring diagram, then do them one by one until you have them all identified....make sure the wires are not connected to anything including each other, if so, disconnect and separate the wires....Probably was a security system...

https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Network-Cable-Tester-Phone/dp/B009ZXYI1U?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_1

on the ohms/buzzer setting, and a loose piece of wire to short the ends in each <...room...>. Some of these may come in handy:

The trick I use to most quickly sort a nest of installed wires is to use a set of unique, known loads (100, 510, 1.5k, etc.) attached at each far end and measure the load value one gets at the near end. Once each wire is identified, don't forget to apply a label to each end of the wire or outlet.

Installing a network switch or hub at the common area should obviate the need to know where each cable terminates.

I’ve used this, a cable tester adapter. You’ll probably need another person would help, though not necessary, but would save some time.

this tester not only would you find the end to the wire, it’ll tell you if the terminal are wired correctly,

You probably (hopefully) have a central multiport where all the cables go.

this item has (2) tools. You plug one end in on the end of the cable, and then you plug the other end in.... you need to do a trial and error to find the correct end. But when you do, it will light up, and also see if it was terminated correctly... Label it and cross it off, and go to the next one. It will be somewhat labor intensive With trial and error.

Cable Tester Adapter Type: RJ-45

if it isn’t wire correctly, you’ll have to re-terminate it correctly with this.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Now it's time to crawl into the mess and start testing.

Regards,

Bill Lee

Hi Bill. Try one of these as I have used them to do exactly what you wished to do.

Network Cable Tester for RJ-45 and RJ-11 Cables.

Just plug the master into an outlet with a fly lead and plug the remote in to each one in turn and only$10.50 here from Element 14 so you should be able to fine a local supplier for you. It will even tell you if a core is transposed or not conected.

Stef, thanks for the pointer and the introduction to Element14. Looks like a great resource. I have one of the network testers on the way.

Regards,

Bill Lee

glad I could help, Regards Stef.

Cheap, High Speed Network Wire Identification Using Old Network Junk

Find, borrow, or buy a cheap used switch with a lot of ports which fit your wires. Get one with port LED's but speed ratings are irrelevant so go for cheap. Lots of ports will lower your wire identification time so get lots if it is easy.

Take it to your rat's nest and power it up.

Take a cheap laptop with a NIC. Remove battery and wall wart adapter.

Disconnect all network wires from all devices in your house labeling them if they were connected to some electronic device. Also label the port on the electronic device to match the wire label.

Plug a short network wire from a port on the switch to the NIC in the laptop. Leave the battery out but plug in the power adapter for the laptop. Observe the switch LED's. Usually at this point you will see that the switch will light up the LED on the port you plugged into the NIC. Now you have a multiport box which lights up to show which port has a powered up NIC attached. Test each port on the switch to find and tape over any dead ones. Remove the short wire.

At your rat's nest, hook up a bunch of your existing unknown wires to functional ports on your switch. None should light their LED's or you need to unplug something else. If you cannot find the something else label any LED lighting wires as dangerous and leave them out of your procedure.

Run around plugging in the laptop NIC to wires elsewhere in the house. Station someone else at your switch labeling and replacing now known wires with still unknown wires at the switch. This is most safely done with the power adapter but more conveniently done with a laptop battery. Label the laptop end of the wire the same as the detected wire at the switch. If no switch port lights up move your laptop to some other wire. Repeat until all wires are labelled.

If any house wires light up your laptop NIC and no LED's on your switch, unplug them promptly from your laptop and label them "dangerous." Retest your laptop for a damaged NIC using the short wire and your cheap switch.

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thewildotter

Like the old sign says.

Fast, cheap, and easy. Pick any two.

You've got the fast and cheap part down but for the layperson that would be an impossible task.

And neither fast nor cheap!

I Claim all Three Despite Your Pessimism

A clueless layperson does not use terms like "Cat 5" installation. They would say the house is supposedly wired for computer networking and I see a lot of wires.

Even a smart but uninformed layperson can understand "plug in both ends of a wire and see if it lights up the lights on that port". Either a switch or a hub with port LED's would probably work but I said switch because that is less of a jargon term. The equipment is all boat anchor stuff which is widely available even in yard sales (since wifi became popular) at "please come and take it" prices. The speed of wire identification using, say, a common 24-port switch will be far higher than any continuity tester or single signal injector. And waaay faster than any method that involves stringing or even finding a wire to form a loop.

So, while I was certainly a bit too verbose in my post you guys understood it and might have helped me simplify the instructions rather than jumping to the false conclusion that it is not fast, cheap, and EASY relative to everything else the OP might use. So, it is fast, it is cheap, and with a little bit of journalism it is easy. For example, you might have volunteered a picture of a switch or hub with a bunch of ports each with individual LED's.

I reject your evaluation and your "pick any two" version of "wisdom" as fatalistic and plain false. Note that it requires only a plug and play switch or hub, no laptop operating system, no network protocol choices, no speed decisions, no bootable anything on the laptop, and has juxtaposed switch blinky light upon laptop power up simplicity for reading.

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thewildotter

I'm not saying your definition of lay person is any different than mine but I would bet that his home was sold as wired with category 5 wiring computer network future-proof upgradeable Hi-Tech ethernet Wi-Fi capable installed by professional it ready tech-friendly installers.

Or something like that.

It requires plugs or ports at both ends of a network wire.

Are there 6 12, 48?

how many cat 5 Jacks are there.

Hooking up ports or plugs to areas that aren't going to be used as a waste of time and money with a signal tracer and a tone generator you don't need anything but a stripped wire or a terminated outlet and a ground is nice to have.

Fast cheap and easy.

I've installed thousands of network boxes and cables. Including the equipment at the head end. Racks and switches.

Use What is Already There

Yes, I can tell that you have lots of experience with bells and whistles well beyond what your customers may ever need.

He can use something with 1, 5, 6, 12, 24, or 48, ports.... (More gets kinda bulky) and it will not matter much at the end with the most wire endings.. The single rj45 jack to a NIC on a legacy laptop is mostly what he needs everywhere else.

He may need a short cat 5 jumper between wall plates and his laptop everywhere else but...

He will not have to disassemble anything down to a single stripped wire and have a specialized piece of test equipment with instructions in six languages to be effective. A fully network wired house does not force you to decide, in advance, all the places you might eventually discover that you might want to plug in your daily use, higher function laptop. You can expect one nearby. Test them all and label them.

None of your minimalist network wiring is interesting AT ALL since he has a fully pre-wired house and all he need do is functionally test using the power up NIC logic sitting in most obsolete laptops. Your custom grounds and terminators and especially your stripped wire are experience and effort requiring. They are NOT fast, NOT cheap, and NOT easy. So pick only zero of them. If the house has cat 5 wires with rj45 plugs hanging down from the ceiling, USE THEM. If it has beautiful wall plates with fancy punch downs and terminators inside, put your screw driver away and plug in a wire with an RJ45 plug on both ends to the plate and to your cheapo laptop with a NIC. Do not buy a signal injector and sign up for technician courses at your local community college.

Now, it might be that some wall plates do not have wires that run to his wiring closet. He can either choose not to use them or hire someone like you to help him out. But all the ones that have a wire ending in his closet and light up a 10 or 100 or 1000 activity indicator or a juxtaposed unlabeled LED on his test switch with his laptop on some remote connection are fair game. And he can identify them at 10 if his switch or his laptop only have 10. Once labeled he can test them at speed with whatever he installs in his closet. The problem at hand is where do they all go. He can decide how to use them later.

Another great feature of using a switch to trace your wires is that a switch may well provide adequate functionality for network use. There may already be one in his closet. That would be the ultimate for fast and cheap. "Easy" depends on the switch but a lot are very turnkey. If there is a port on a switch for every wall plate in the house, he may be able to plug a bunch of dangling wires into the switch and be off and running without ever tracing the wires. It is a gamble since phone signals may be in some of them with their 90v ringers. That is why I was suggesting a basically sacrificial switch and laptop.

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thewildotter

sorry I did good work it sounds like this place is wired by an electrician. Maybe. just because it's wired doesn't mean it's good or worth investing your time and money in. The rat's nest points to that duh. Unlabeled? What a surprise.

The specialized test equipment I speak of does not require a stripped wire or a ground or anything more than 20 bucks these days.

It's also useful for many other projects not just one.

Peace out.

I like good labeling myself. I do have to admit though that with a good quality, turnkey switch labeling becomes unnecessarily tedious in a lot of networks. Now as far as being good or not, I have seen RJ45 plugs attached to wires with inappropriate pinouts which can cause the normal wire run lengths not to function properly at higher speeds. Specifically, sometimes wires are paired at the connector randomly rather than per one of the several standards resulting in functional pairs which are not twisted together in the cable. When I start seeing that kind of problem in a network I wonder if some electrician was attempting to overstretch his skills. In many buildings, OTOH it can be very labor intensive to replace a lot of wires running to a lot of wall plates. Many times I have replaced strangely wired plugs to reduce errors on links. It is quite satisfying to replace a plug or two rather than pulling a whole new cable to get vastly lowered error rates. I'll bet you have seen the same thing.

I was not a professional network guy. I was just helping out acquaintances with crisis level problems. Back when I was doing these things I was also doing oscilloscope TDR and other semi-exotic stuff as well. Do you have any TDR experience ? Do you have TDR equipment preferences ? Do you know what distortionless transmission lines are as opposed to lossless transmission lines ? Do you have any experience with distributed CMOS MSI (74HC, 40??, or more modern substitutes) transmission line distributed amplifiers or distributed power antennae ? People with these (beyond TDR) interests seem quite rare so I like to ask whenever I think there might be even a slim hope. Most electronic types do not even know about Beverage antennae or Goubau transmission lines or even transmission line transformers. Do your interests extend into any of these domains ?

Do you know about TeraHertz waves generated by exclusively electronic mechanisms and nanoplasmas ? Have you tried to build any devices ? What do you think of using transmission line distributed amplifiers to implement the exciter circuitry ? Do you know about Marx Generators ?

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thewildotter

I used a network analyzer that could make a one page report for each wire.

If there was ever a problem it could tell you how far away it was.

Unfortunately the work I was involved in was of such high quality that having such equipment didn't make sense as problems were few and far between.

Any chance to use equipment for it's intended purpose is welcome. Nothing more satisfying than using a megger to find a bad wire that looks otherwise OK.

once upon a time I wanted a dedicated TDR but didn't have enough need for one.

they were big bucks.

Can you go through that again, please?

I missed the part where the Coyote pours some bird seed under the suspended safe, presumed to bait the Roadrunner.

Carlton,

Plug in the far end of the wire, pay attention to what light illuminates on the box with a lot of wires.

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thewildotter

Fluke makes this for tracing wires, has adapter for RJ45 plug. Works great for all wires, $72 in stock at Home Depot or Lowe’s. Doesn’t test whether all conductors are intact though. I use the warble tone.

Just buy a cheap switch like this one.

Plug all of your cables in at your junction box, and plug your router in as well.

Now who cares which one goes where....they will all work.

Unless the connectors aren’t wired correctly...

and considering the (UN)organized initial setup... it’s a risky assumption they are.