This one is work related rather than home, we have a fair number of CAT5 runs at work which either have missing pairs, or else are intermittant - if you go and fix one problem in the cabinet, chances are you create another because you've jogged a patch cable.
Although i've a relatively long time working with CAT5, most of my experience has been with recently installed (last 5 years) rather than older installations (10 years+).
Is this a common problem as installations age? Or is it a sign that dud equipment/contractors were used i nthe first place (we're talking NHS here, and I suspect the tenders went to the lowest bidder, who then used the cheapest components and subbies they could get :=(( )
In article , snipped-for-privacy@o2.co.uk scribeth thus
Sounds like the cables weren't "punched down" well enough with the correct Krone tool and or cheap/ poor rack strips. Seen this happen before. If its done as it should be then this system using decent rack terminal strips etc is very reliable...
IME it's going to be poor installation or crap components. One further thought, have you checked all the patches? I've had a large batch of faulty leads before now.
We don't own the building or the fixed wiring, and them as do .... Well, let's leave it there :=3D)) We can repatch and wiggle, but apart from that all we can do is test the fixed wiring and report the faults.
Are you sure it's Cat 5, and not Cat 3? I worked in a building which had both, and if you accidentally used a Cat 3 run or Cat 3 patch cable when you meant to use Cat 5, it could show up as unreliable from the network point of view.
I haven't come across wiring which was intermittant as you describe. When you identify an intermittant connection, I would take the opportunity to carefully inspect the connectors, checking for bent contacts, dirt contamination, loose punch-downs, damaged patchcords, etc, to see if you can start identifying where the issue(s) are.
Back in the days of 10base5/10base2, I worked somewhere where we had lots of 10base2 (thinnet/BNC) ethernet. Every few days, the network would go down, and whilst most of the office turned away from their desktops to talk about their holidays, a couple of us crawled around on the floor searching for the broken BNC connector. I adopted a ruthless process of pulling any suspect BNC plug off the cable. We had a good stock of cables and made up/repaired them ourselves. Within a month of pulling the plugs off, our 10base2 network became very reliable, as that quickly got all the suspect cables out of circulation. The only slight disadvantage was that we ended up hanging on to our 10base2 network until after all the other company sites had switched to Cat 5, because our 10base2 network was by then quite reliable, whereas the others were still having regular network outages on theirs.
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