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So I got it into my head to wire up my house.. I had a guy who was doing some work already just run Cat6 cables to the points that wanted sockets and label the wires. I decided to terminate the cables myself (this guy could run the wires, but isn't an IT guy). I've got the hang of the wall sockets, and I think I'm terminating the other end correctly, but is there an easy way to test it out without switching my network around?

My current set up is Modem -> Wireless Router (hardwire) -> AP Extender (wireless) with devices hanging off either the router or the extender depending on where they are in the house.

My plan is to go:
Modem -> Router (hardwire on one of the new connections) -> Switch -> AP Extender with many of the devices switch over to being a hardwire connection to the wall sockets.

I've done up a couple of the runs, but I want to check to make sure it's working before I do all the rest and screw up a perfectly good cable install

There are Ethernet cable checkers you can get like this:

https://www.amazon.com/HDE-HDE-H11-Netw ... B000P1OA1O

They are a lot like the 3 prong wall socket testers. Alternatively, if you could get come really long cables for a multimeter you could check them that way.

The problem with cheap testers and multimeters is that they only check continuity. Each signal pair must also use a physically twisted together pair of wires in the cable or the cable will not work properly; you can have continuity but still have incorrect pairing. Absent a sophisticated cable tester, the only way to really test the cable run is to try passing data over it, and verify that you get the full expected transfer speed.

Some motherboard BIOS have a network test option that will show you the pairs connected and approximate cable lengths. That's about as good as you will get without one of those meters. Try asking around at your IT department at work if you are on good terms with them, they may have one of those tester sets you could borrow over a weekend when they aren't using it.

What JBI said, the cheap testers are only good for continuity checking for correct cable pairings & wiring. 

If you already bought the switch you could connect it to two lines at what will be the core, and stick laptops or PCs at the other two ends and start passing data between them to test everything that way. Some large file transfers for sustained throughput and speedtests for raw bandwidth would be simple enough. If it's a full bore networking switch consoling into it can also let you disable MDIX on the lines to be absolutely sure. 

Hmm.. That's a good idea.. I've got the switch (surplus from a company that went under a couple years ago), so maybe I'll try that out with the couple runs I've tried to terminate.. Now, I just need to find a laptop with an ethernet port

A less-obvious indication of an "iffy" connection is to keep tabs on the connection rate. If you connect gigabit hardware and it has a tendency to randomly drop back to 100mb, then the jack connections are probably not very clean.

The problem with having an electrician pull your networking cable is they can rough it up a bit more than it likes, but that ship has sailed.

When I bought my house 5 or so years ago one of the things I did was hard wire as many spots as I could.  Pulled and terminated everything myself, and the best way I had to test was plugging my laptop into each port and running a speedtest. Not a great way (old laptop with only 100Mb, not Gbe) but fairly reasonable.

Modem --> router --> wall outlet --> 24-port patch panel in garage --> 24-port switch in garage --> back to patch panel --> everywhere else in the house

I have 10 or so total spots on the patch panel filled so far. There'd be a few more but the router directly supplies a few devices that are right there. If I ever fix up the living room it'll get wired for 4 just for giggles, plus I've got enough hardware to do it.  Minimum DVR and smart TV.

And the solar panel monitoring gizmo plugs straight into the switch in the garage.

If you are going to test by just running traffic always use Gigabit as it uses all 8 wires, 10 and 100 Mb/s only use 4 wires. When we moved in to our house I found a couple of runs of Cat5 that would work fine with 100 but wouldn't run at Gig because they had a nail nicking the cable.

Thanks everyone... so far everything looks good... I had the guy pull the cabling through some conduits below the house, so looks like he managed not to mess up the runs... I've nicked the wires more when terminating

druidcent wrote:

Thanks everyone... so far everything looks good... I had the guy pull the cabling through some conduits below the house, so looks like he managed not to mess up the runs... I've nicked the wires more when terminating

That's why you always leave slack so you can chop off a couple of inches to re-terminate.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

druidcent wrote:

Thanks everyone... so far everything looks good... I had the guy pull the cabling through some conduits below the house, so looks like he managed not to mess up the runs... I've nicked the wires more when terminating

That's why you always leave slack so you can chop off a couple of inches to re-terminate.

Downside of this is, if you don't need to chop some off, you will violate the recommended bend radius spec trying to stuff the extra into the junction box.

The harder we push copper wiring, the finickier things get.

When I did my last house I kept the slack outside the box. Actually I didn't use a box. I ran 1.5" PVC through the attic and walls from the wiring closet and had the pipes all end about 6" above the hole. I used the old world brackets. (http://thd.co/2cn4vQf) and put monoprice faceplates to that.

EDIt: here's the write-up I did back then: http://homeservershow.com/an-adventure-in-wiring.html

Yeah, Ethernet is low voltage under NEC, it can be installed in the bare wall and plated with open-back brackets. That way you can leave a nice spare coil hanging in the wall.

ludi wrote:

Yeah, Ethernet is low voltage under NEC, it can be installed in the bare wall and plated with open-back brackets. That way you can leave a nice spare coil hanging in the wall.

I was waiting for you to chime in before saying that's exactly how I'd do it. I've love to pull Cat6, but in a house built circa 1875 with no access to the exterior walls (recently stuffed full of blown-in insulation), I'm not up for hours of trying to make fish tapes find and hook on each other. Walls don't line up between floors here, and that makes things problematic.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

When I did my last house I kept the slack outside the box. Actually I didn't use a box. I ran 1.5" PVC through the attic and walls from the wiring closet and had the pipes all end about 6" above the hole. I used the old world brackets. (http://thd.co/2cn4vQf) and put monoprice faceplates to that.

EDIt: here's the write-up I did back then: http://homeservershow.com/an-adventure-in-wiring.html

I wouldn't use PVC. While it's unlikely, it can build static electricity. That's not good for switch or NIC ports, and it doesn't take much to kill them. If you're going to run a conduit you should use EMT instead. When I wired my house after a fire I just used metal U hangers. See picture here. And then I used low voltage mounting brackets for the face plates.

At work if it's new construction we'll have a box and EMT put in the wall and stubbed out 6" or so above the wall. If it's a run going into an existing wall we just drop it down with a pull rod and use the low-voltage mounting brackets.


With regards to testing cables, I use a Klein Scout Pro 2. It works really well and isn't that expensive compared to other tools. It will give you the length of each pair (each pair is actually a slightly different length due to the way they are twisted). It doesn't just check continuity, it'll also tell you if any pairs are flipped. As added bonuses it can also test coax runs and be used to identify runs.

curtisb wrote:

I wouldn't use PVC. While it's unlikely, it can build static electricity. That's not good for switch or NIC ports, and it doesn't take much to kill them. If you're going to run a conduit you should use EMT instead. When I wired my house after a fire I just used metal U hangers. See picture here. And then I used low voltage mounting brackets for the face plates.

Ouch, EMT is pricey. I wanted to run some sort of channel so that I could easily pull through more cable down the road if desired (more network or RG6), especially for the areas that were in-wall. Maybe I'd do open in the attic to save on $$ and then EMT in the walls. We moved out of that house 4 years ago, and we have a block house now that has no access in the exterior walls (just 3/4" furring strips between drywall and block), so I haven't done any wiring here. Just wireless for everything.

curtisb wrote:

I wouldn't use PVC. While it's unlikely, it can build static electricity. That's not good for switch or NIC ports, and it doesn't take much to kill them.

While I've seen switch/NIC ports get killed by nearby lightning strikes, I've never seen one die randomly from ESD at the jack. They really ought to be pretty resistant to garden variety ESD as all of the signals are transformer coupled, so there's no direct electrical connection between the jack and the electronics.

Edit: After doing a bit of reading, perhaps they're more susceptible than I thought, especially if the manufacturer has skimped on the protection circuitry. So yeah... maybe the PVC isn't the best idea.