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I am working in a customers home and they have a home full of cat5 cabling. I have put a router in the main network hub where all the cables from the house come in. I have used a phone to identify a cable and I plugged one end into the router and at the wall plate I plugged in an access point.
My problem is, the line works perfectly fine, clear audio for a telephone. But with data there is no response, no blinking lights, its just like the device isn't connected (but it is).
I thought to myself maybe the person who installed the cabling only connected the required pairs for telecom but not for data. So I took the wall plate off the wall and sure enough only the blue pair was connected. I used a 110 punchdown tool to punchdown the cable to match the standard found at the main hub. T568-A. But the data still doesn't work on any of the ports apart from 1.
So far I have tried using every other wall plate in the home. The only one that worked was one in the study (after me having to punchdown the data pairs).
Interestingly enough, after talking to the home owner, he studied electrical engineering. He also has no idea why phone works and data doesn't.
We thought their could be such thing as a telephone only jack. So that even when you punched down data is still wasn't electrically connected.
Extra notes.
- ALL the ports in the house on the walls and in the main hub are all RJ-45 Cat5 (we think). Their is no RJ12/RJ11 plugs in the home.
- The study port only worked after I terminated the data pins.
- We have tried almost every cable in the home.
- PoE support is required on the line once up
Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
Are you sure it really is Cat5? What speed Ethernet are you trying to run on it? – brhans – 2016-01-06T22:16:39.993
There is no writing on the cabling. It is just blue insulation with the normal 8 pairs with the usual colours. All the wires in the house are the same type of wire and the one we got working got 10/100. – Zac Austin – 2016-01-06T22:18:06.067
We are aiming for gigabit, but I think we are setting our goals a bit high. – Zac Austin – 2016-01-06T22:18:28.323
1I believe Cat5 is only supposed to be good for 10/100M - if that cable is even Cat5. I think GigE needs Cat5e at least. The Orange/Green/Blue/Brown pairs don't mean its Cat5 - could easily be Cat3, which would only be useful for 10M. Compare the 'twistyness' of a pair in a known Cat5e or Cat6 with what you have. If you find your installed cable is less 'tightly twisted' then its almost certainly a lower Cat number and probably not much use for Ethernet. You may have just been lucky with the 1 you got working - is it the shortest distance by any chance? – brhans – 2016-01-06T22:32:14.123
Ok, I will try that today. But doesn't it not matter why standard it is? Even if it was Cat3 would I still see the blinking lights on the connected devices? – Zac Austin – 2016-01-06T22:34:03.593
The blinky lights in your switch or adapter need a lot more than simple continuity from one end to the other before they will recognize a connection. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes configuration & discovery going on... – brhans – 2016-01-06T22:36:54.217
I did give the gear a fair bit of time to come online. The gear that did work though started blinking within seconds. – Zac Austin – 2016-01-06T22:45:10.277
The twist of the wires needs to be maintained as close as possible right up to the terminals. I question whether ethernet is compatible with phone lines in the same cable. – None – 2016-01-06T23:12:53.110
Oh, sorry. I was using the phone to test if any of the line works. I don't want to have both running only Ethernet. Sorry. Should have been more clear. – Zac Austin – 2016-01-06T23:14:30.333
After reading all, I'm convinced you don't have a proper Ethernet cabling tester. Get one, you won't succeed until you do. The don't much anymore – Tyson – 2016-01-07T04:27:14.057
I left my cable tester behind day one. I did miss it. – Zac Austin – 2016-01-07T11:24:36.613