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What is the max distance for cat5e cables in 1000Mbps (1 Gigabit) Full Duplex mode?

HopelessN00b
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Paulo Coghi
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1 Answers1

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Quoting from Wikipedia:

1000BASE-T (also known as IEEE 802.3ab) is a standard for gigabit Ethernet over copper wiring.

Each 1000BASE-T network segment can be a maximum length of 100 meters (328 feet), and must use Category 5 cable or better (including Cat 5e and Cat 6).

So it's 100 meters (328 feet).

Community
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Daniel Baktiar
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  • It is incredible how the vendors want make you believe that only the cat6 is able to function in 1000Mbps at 100 meters. – Paulo Coghi May 19 '12 at 16:35
  • But can you tell if the cat5e can run in full duplex at distances greater than 10 meters? – Paulo Coghi May 19 '12 at 16:38
  • Sure Cat5e can run 1GbE full duplex for 10-30 meters. If it does not, it is a defective cable or a defective NIC. – Dmitri Chubarov May 19 '12 at 16:56
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    Why would the max run length have to take into account network switches? I thought that was only physical runs between, say, a switch and a client. – TheLQ May 19 '12 at 17:33
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    Sorry but this is wrong, 100 meters are the length of the collision domain and not end to end. With a switch (very unlikely you are gonna see a Gbit HUB, and you would not be running full duplex over it anyway) it is 100 meters each endpoint to switch. You have to take patch panels, cables from wall jacks etc into account though! – rackandboneman May 19 '12 at 21:22
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    100 meters? In ideal conditions, maybe. In my house, the Cat5e wiring only runs at 100 Mbit speeds, and it's only a few dozen meters long. The Cat6 wiring that I added myself runs at Gigabit speeds. – Aaron Franke Sep 12 '18 at 16:21
  • @AaronFranke Do you think there's any chance your termination is to blame? I tried passthrough crimper + connectors at first and couldn't break 100Mbps, then got a traditional crimper + connectors and get 1Gbps every time now, including with cat5e. My longest run was 4 cables at ~180ft with Home Depot's solid cat5e (26 gauge?) and they're all managing 1Gbps + PoE. – AveryFreeman Jun 02 '22 at 19:35