CAT5 wall socket - AAARRRGH!

Yes, the wiring *is* that sensitive. To get the noise rejection of differential signalling down twisted pairs, the pairs need to be both paired, and twisted. Even half an inch of untwistedness, Hextraspeshally for the pair which goes across pins 3-6 (widest separation), can cause much worse performance. Your network will still "work", as the link-layer and upwards will detect garbles and cause retransmits; but your performance will be in the Saniflo and margin for errors decreased.

You may well get away with poor wiring practice: the standards are there so that properly-installed stuff will work over the advertised 100m length at advertised speeds, with the advertised number of plugs and sockets along the way (patch panels, etc.) But as you're d-i-y'ing, do yourself a favour and do the job right. The proper punchdown tool, rather than the plastic toy; keeping the twists in place; not pulling hard on the cable or putting excessively sharp bends in the route (a

1 inch/3cm min radius is good, 2in/5cm better); no nasty staples (they push the wires too close together), rather nice loose cable ties - that's the way to go. Do it right once, and forget about it for the next 10 years.

HTH, Stefek

Reply to
stefek.zaba
Loading thread data ...

Hextrawhatally? We seem to be getting away with it OK RX packets:117723153 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:131344062 errors:7 dropped:0 overruns:7 carrier:7

The cable lengths are much shorter than 100m, maybe 20-30m for the longer runs. Another office with a similar setup, but with longer cables (4 storey building) also works fine, although that is only running at 10Mbps. That office has an even worse setup, as it still has the 25 pin wall sockets left in place, with RJ45 adaptors plugged in with around 2 inch of floating wire in the adaptor. Dunno if the overall screening on the serial cable would make a difference.

If we ever do rewire it will be done, right, but our bodge has been forgotten about for the last 8 years.

Reply to
John Armstrong

It's even better when you can 'borrow' one off a cabling monkey :)

-- cheers,

witchy/binarydinosaurs

Reply to
Witchy

Ick - that's the nastiest looking socket I've seen! The Krone ones I used here look like this:

formatting link
stickers are for following different wiring regs.

This is my punchdown tool:

formatting link
layout of the stickers show which wire goes where, and you're right in that the pairs are fed down the centre of the pins then split and fed to each position. The punchdown tool both inserts and clips the wire so it's really worth getting a real one if you can.

Stefek is also right about the sensitivity - up here in the control tower the connection speeds are spot on, but downstairs in the living room it's noticeable slower so I've obviously b0rked something when I was running the cables. Not sure what though - no excessive bends, no cable ties etc.

-- cheers,

witchy/binarydinosaurs

Reply to
Witchy

The slot into which the wire fits.

Reply to
R W

Ah - just looked at the picture again and rotated my view through 90 degrees and it all makes sense (I think). Just got my Screwfix punch tool and a double socket kit which includes a very nice explanation and picture. This job seems fated. Parcelforce (who are usually excellent) lost all record of the original shipment. After a day and a half of me chasing Screwfix they decided it was lost without trace and sent me another package. Both packages turned up this morning on the same van. Hey, ho - a wiring I will go.

Cheers Dave R

Reply to
David W.E. Roberts

Just re-checked and re-checked, cursed, cried, checked again, despaired, checked etc. Now pretty certain it is

2 - orange/white 8 - brown/white red blob brown blob 1 - white/orange 7 - white/brown 6 - green/white 4 - blue/white green blob blue blob 3 - white/green 5 - white/blue

At least the colour blobs match the wiring colours. {colour}/white above white/{colour} below

The problems I had were due to the rotation of the components as I took everything apart to test the (well hidden) contacts with a meter.

Also doesn't match the layout of the modular sockets I bought from Screwfix.

However everything is marked up now so hopefully all will be well.

Just have to hope the slight variant on the wire grips work O.K. with my Screwfix punchdown tool.

Cheers Dave R

Reply to
David W.E. Roberts

Usually the socket is marked according to the pair colours.

Get a proper tool, the disposable plastic things arn't much good.

That's how they want to go.

Don't untwist the pairs any more than you have to.

Reasonably easily. Even more so using the proper tool, which has a hook for that purpose.

Sockets, unlike plugs, don't get "used up". The plastic tools, however...

Reply to
Mark Evans

This helps quite a bit.

The pairs would go

blue green brown orange

The tricky bit with this kind of indication is working out which way around the individual wires of a pair go.

If these are the only sockets you are using it dosn't matter if you are consistent. It does become a problem if you are using different sockets/patch panels.

Whatever. Just don't pull the cable tie too tight.

Reply to
Mark Evans

Yes it is. Also untwisting the pairs too much can make it harder, rather than easier to wire things up.

Reply to
Mark Evans

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.