CAT6 stranded under the House? Did I do this wrong???

[SkOrPn]

Hey guys, sorry for asking this noob question, but suddenly I am thinking I made a mistake with my home networks cabling a few years back.

Recently I located EVERY CAT5 cable I could find and tossed them away and decided that for any patch cable over say 3 feet I would use 24AWG CAT6 stranded, and also for anything coming off of Gigabit enabled ports (so almost every patch cable). Then for the lone 10/100 switch (2 foot from the router) I would continue to use good self-built CAT5e cables so long I kept the runs short. For the service line from the router to that switch, I went a head and used CAT6 (about 3') though, because it felt right. I want my home networks cabling to be "ideal".

Here is the worry I suddenly have. Years ago I replaced our 1980's long 100' (I think 4 conductor CAT3? analog phone wire) run from the VDSL+ access panel to the modem+Router location (C1000A + RT-AC66U_B1). I used CAT6 stranded because it was what I had plenty of and thought it would be perfect (not counting 23AWG) for the 100 foot run. Then I used this same CAT6 stranded for the 2nd longest run from the router to the 8-port Gigabit switch, about 75 foot away. I am really good at making cables, but have not been so good at studying exactly how they should be deployed (I'm improving). I believe my network would get a solid B but that isn't good enough in my mind. I want it to be A+ and a really good Network engineer would have no possible improvement tip to give me, lol.

Anyway, recently I read a Networking article that recommended to never use more than 20 feet per patch of CAT6 stranded especially if its 24AWG or smaller in size? This has really bothered me because the main internet access run and main gigabit run to the switch are both well over 20 feet. I guess I wasn't paying much attention, but I believe I should have used 23AWG solid CAT6 for the internet service AND for that 75' Gigabit switch run, since both are non-patch stationary and under the home. (???)

So was that article correct that I should NOT use CAT6 24AWG stranded for anything longer than 20 feet? Would it be worth replacing at least those two runs with 23AWG solid? I mean its not that expensive, but it is under the House and a real pain to crawl. If I would see ZERO difference than I wont bother, but if there is even 1% difference, OR a matter of proper quality pride, than I would want to take care of it. I don't like doing things just a.o.k, I like to do them A+ so I don't have to worry about it for at least another decade.

Am I over thinking, or did I do it wrong?

Best Regards
Rod

 

[sfx2000]

Off the cuff - 24awg CAT6 should be fine for data transmission on that run - POE could be a problem perhaps...

When you mention "under" the house - I'm assuming basement or crawlspace?

 

[SkOrPn]

Off the cuff - 24awg CAT6 should be fine for data transmission on that run - POE could be a problem perhaps...

When you mention "under" the house - I'm assuming basement or crawlspace?

It's a roughly 2 to 2.5 foot crawl space if I'm lucky and maybe only 20" the closer I get to where the internet access panel is. I attached the Ethernet to the underside of the floors where I found conveniently placed support beams (off ground). And it's stranded cable, the kind you would normally use from the wall to the clients. If it were 24awg CAT6 solid I'm sure I wouldn't worry about it, not for a home network anyway. The article recommends solid types of Ethernet for long in-wall type runs. Thankfully since this house is not pre wired for Ethernet and I have underhome access I can change out the cabling any time I need to, but I prefer spring or fall lol.

What do you mean by POE could be a problem? You mean the 100' internet line should have probably been solid type? Yeah my download speeds are 25% lower than what I pay for and CenturyLink has no idea why. Hmm...

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

 

[CaptainSTX]

What do you mean by POE could be a problem? You mean the 100' internet line should have probably been solid type? Yeah my download speeds are 25% lower than what I pay for and CenturyLink has no idea why. Hmm...

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

POE = Power Over Ethernet. Used to centrally power security cameras, APs, etc.

As for your speed you can't determine how good your LAN is by testing using a web based Internet speed test. You need to find a LAN testing utility and test your speed using two wired devices on your network. First test using a known and probably a store bought high quality Cat6 short jumper connecting these devices and then repeat the same test using the cable you are concerned about and then see if there is a significant statistical difference after running multiple tests. Don't worry if you don't get gig results when testing because you have super hardware you won't be able to get that speed between two devices on your LAN. What you should be concerned with is if there is difference in the average speed at the 95% confidence level. If there is then either your connections at both ends of your present cable aren't good ( a possibility since you used stranded cable of fittings that might be designed to work best with solid cable ) or the stranded cable makes a difference.

 

[SkOrPn]

POE = Power Over Ethernet. Used to centrally power security cameras, APs, etc.

As for your speed you can't determine how good your LAN is by testing using a web based Internet speed test. You need to find a LAN testing utility and test your speed using two wired devices on your network. First test using a known and probably a store bought high quality Cat6 short jumper connecting these devices and then repeat the same test using the cable you are concerned about and then see if there is a significant statistical difference after running multiple tests. Don't worry if you don't get gig results when testing because you have super hardware you won't be able to get that speed between two devices on your LAN. What you should be concerned with is if there is difference in the average speed at the 95% confidence level. If there is then either your connections at both ends of your present cable aren't good ( a possibility since you used stranded cable of fittings that might be designed to work best with solid cable ) or the stranded cable makes a difference.

Yeah I already tested LAN speeds using LAN Speed Test (lite) and from the Home server to the furthest client it showed well over 2000 Mbps so I didn't know what to think. I will do it again since I replaced the cables with CAT6 recently and haven't retested yet. I also tried from a folder on the slowest hard drive and it showed like 47 Mbps write and almost 700 reads (or something like that). It was consistent after multiple tests. However, I can't test the Ethernet cable using a LAN speed test on the WAN side, right? I mean with a 40/5 VDSL+ account I would never see the true speeds or latency, unless I was to bring out a laptop and install a RJ45 connector at the access panel? This might tell me how healthy that line is I guess, but again I am not sure a LAN test is good enough to determine the line quality for WAN access. WAN isn't designed to be used with Stranded cabling, right? I mean I pulled off very old 23AWG solid copper wiring and replaced it with 24AWG stranded, LOL. That seems backwards to me...

EDIT: OK, I just tested again using LAN Speed Test (lite) from a client on the other side of the house, furthest away in fact. I am now getting faster results using the CAT6 at 321 Mbps writes, and 842 reads, roughly the same after five tries. I also tried using my Admin account directly to the Server (which runs on a old SSD) and it continuously shows 7,300+ Mbps writes and 2210 Mbps reads. These numbers just don't seem correct to me so those must be from RAM I assume? I used a 200 Megabyte file size. Oh wait a minute, I am using software that pools all my storage drives (StableBit DrivePool) so that could clearly be making things different than they really are depedning on where the DrivePool software decided to place the test file. I completely forgot about that lol. And today I removed about 15 feet from the LAN cable to the switch. So not even sure if that changed anything.

But how do I test the 100' WAN line quality going to the access panel if I can't use a online speed test? Not really too concerned with speeds as I am quality of the entire run. I used CAT6 only because it is twisted wiring and reduces cross talk. We live very far out in the country and I do not like CenturyLink or DSL for that matter, but its all we have so the Network is only as good as the weakest link, which is probably on our side. I am trying to minimize or completely remove any weak links both on the WAN and LAN. We have had many errors from clients with pop up messages such as "Your network is too slow to playback this file" and the file in question is a stupid ripped DVD, not even Bluray quality. How can this Network be too slow for a 3mb/s stream? The Server is fantastic, and the NIC is a high quality Intel branded model, #1 at Newegg and Amazon and most reviews always give it #1 best NIC for years now. So, I MUST believe something isn't quite right. Or wasn't quite right before replacing everything. Now that all cables are new I obviously need time to see if things are smoother. New Cables, New Router and a bunch of shorter runs now. I hope this work fixed it.

P.S. Starting in mid September I have to start managing a Home Network and all its computers/media players from 10 miles away. So yet another reason I wan't my network to be ideal.

Question: What write and read speeds would be satisfactory through a RT-AC66U_B1 router using Merlin? I'm curious anyway... My assumption would be the max speeds of the hard drives for which I am working with at the time? Right? (I already know the answer to this but please enlighten me if I am somehow wrong)

 

[wojowojo16]

stop thinking about it, its working fine...

 

[SkOrPn]

stop thinking about it, its working fine...

Actually no it wasn't, I had the router setup incorrectly but a friendly user over at dslreports got me straightened out. He had the exact same setup. Glad my cables are OK though, but I still feel like the source cable coming from the grey box on the side of the house should have been solid stranded, like the phone company originally had it. Happy to finally have the ISP supplied gateway set to bridged mode though and using a router I feel good about.