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I'm trying to set up a small Ethernet network at home. Basically I have two rooms wired to a router through CAT5E cables. After putting on the R45 jacks all I got is orange light blinking next to the network card.
Though I double checked the cables and it seems that I got the order of the colors right, I'm not an IT specialist and I may miss something.
Is it possible to debug what goes wrong using software tools? I have linux laptops at hand.
I partially disagree. Granted I have only cabled for 5 years, but as long as you have proper equipment for making the cable and proper equipment for testing the cable, there is no reason you can't turn any length of cat5e into a standard cable. You are correct though, that longer lengths of cables are really meant to be jack to jack and not terminated with plugs, though there are definite instances where this does not occur, even on 300 ft cables (such as in COs for remote management connections - AT&T actually requires that you terminate with plugs). – MaQleod – 2012-10-25T00:34:14.510