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Ethernet issue - home wired with Cat5e cables

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pb9

Regular Contributor
Hello,
My home is wired with Cat 5e cables for Ethernet. The problem is the wiring does not work currently and I am trying to figure out why before I call for service. There is a jack in the office room which is connected to my rt-ac86u. The ports on the 86u work fine. However the Ethernet cables in the panel don’t seem connected. Posting some pics of the panel. I cut the cable and security so those are not needed. This panel is upstairs and there is another panel in the master bedroom which seems to be only for security. How to tell which one of the cables in the panel is the one from the office? Which one of the switches should I connect this to if this not connected? One of the switches seems to be for security only. Thanks
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Cannot see clearly enough, but that looks like it might be phone service blocks, not ethernet punch down.
4 wires or ? are connected from each cable at each punch down ?

do you have internet access now through the green cables ?

looks like there are tags and maybe writing on some of the green cables.
 
The wires connected out of the left side(when I face them - my left) are not connected anywhere. The wires going into the right side are connected to the switches. One of the green wires with a red tag(going into the right side or out of the panel) says “svc” on it. The other two red tags are blank.
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More pictures from bottom to top. Last one is the top most. Thanks for the response
 
Cannot see clearly enough, but that looks like it might be phone service blocks, not ethernet punch down.
4 wires or ? are connected from each cable at each punch down ?

do you have internet access now through the green cables ?

looks like there are tags and maybe writing on some of the green cables.
I don’t have any internet access through the green cables right now
 
Green feed to each room / multiple jacks.

Top black panel IN port would connect to your router and daisy chain down to each panel if desired.

Of you're doing what I think you're doing then you would need to punch down on the block / port and feed that jumper to the IN port if you don't move your router to the box.
 
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Green feed to each room / multiple jacks.

Top black panel IN port would connect to your router and daisy chain down to each panel if desired.

Of you're doing what I think you're doing then you would need to punch down on the block / port and feed that jumper to the IN port if you don't move your router to the box.
Are those modules passive like a typical pots punch down block ?
The modules that i saw in LeGrande’s catalog for networking had individual rj45 ports for each punch down.

these look like for phone/security system rather than network unless there is something on the back side. Was not able to find those modules in the current catalog.
 
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Those are for phone. They are all connected together. You need a punch down panel. CAT5e if that is what is on the wire. You need to punch down all those wires into a CAT5e punch down panel. There will be 1 RJ45 jack for each wire. You add a patch cable from the RJ45 jack to the switch to make each wire hot.
 
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Hello,
My home is wired with Cat 5e cables for Ethernet. The problem is the wiring does not work currently and I am trying to figure out why before I call for service. There is a jack in the office room which is connected to my rt-ac86u. The ports on the 86u work fine. However the Ethernet cables in the panel don’t seem connected. Posting some pics of the panel. I cut the cable and security so those are not needed. This panel is upstairs and there is another panel in the master bedroom which seems to be only for security. How to tell which one of the cables in the panel is the one from the office? Which one of the switches should I connect this to if this not connected? One of the switches seems to be for security only. ThanksView attachment 39776
View attachment 39777

I don't think you can make it. Call a technician.
 
The punch down pattern of the wires also matters. The order in these blocks has to match the same ordering as the receptacle RJ45 pattern on the other end. There is an A pattern and a B pattern. So the tech will have to verify what was done on each cable. The module blocks will have to be replaced with ones for CAT5E lan termination. Make sure what you get will support a high enough frequency for Gbit/s ethernet at least. The tech can also check the frequency rating of the cables used as well although, it is likely ok for the short distances in a house.

BTW, you can use the RG6 coax for a MOCA network for at least 2.5 Gbit/sec ethernet by getting some GOCoax or Actiontec MOCA 2.5 modems. If the modem has a TV coax out port , it will also support OTA TV signal if desired.
 
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BTW, you can use the RG6 coax for a MOCA network for at least 2.5 Gbit/sec ethernet by getting some GOCoax or Actiontec MOCA 2.5 modems. If the modem has a TV coax out port , it will also support OTA TV signal if desired.
Love the MOCA suggestion. I did not know this was an option. This will work and is probably the cheaper option. But this gets me thinking that I can still get the Ethernet fixed and use an outdoor antenna to connect to the VOIP Residential amplifier VRA500B and get OTA TV signal in every room of my house. Yes, the previous owner got ethernet/phone/cable connection in every room. I cut the cord and was looking for options to get OTA signal to every room. Thanks for the inputs everyone. Much appreciated.
 
Love the MOCA suggestion. I did not know this was an option. This will work and is probably the cheaper option. But this gets me thinking that I can still get the Ethernet fixed and use an outdoor antenna to connect to the VOIP Residential amplifier VRA500B and get OTA TV signal in every room of my house. Yes, the previous owner got ethernet/phone/cable connection in every room. I cut the cord and was looking for options to get OTA signal to every room. Thanks for the inputs everyone. Much appreciated.
If the moca path goes through one of those amps or another splitter somewhere, those devices have to be MOCA 2 rated. Those are probably not compatible.

check the subforum here for moca applications.

If you get an antenna and you have to go outside the house to mount it, make sure you put a low noise amp with a filter to block cellular LTE signals. That can interfere with the TV signal. ChannelMaster has very good mast mounted low noise digital TV amps ( you want the OTA amp physically as close to the antenna as possible). 7777 and 7778 are two available. All are listed here-

if you have to mount an antenna outdoors, get a pro to install as the installation must comply with NEC code to protect you, house, and electrical devices from lightning and atmospheric charging. Indoors the antenna is protected by the house outside surface.
 
Those are for phone. They are all connected together. You need a punch down panel. CAT5e if that is what is on the wire. You need to punch down all those wires into a CAT5e punch down panel. There will be 1 RJ45 jack for each wire. You add a patch cable from the RJ45 jack to the switch to make each wire hot.
I second what @coxhaus indicated. This really isn't terribly difficult. Those blocks are for telephones and the cables look like their identified by room. If the cables in the rooms are also identified in the same manner then you need to do the following:

1. Decide what cables you want to use for ethernet purposes.
2. At the panel, cut those cables from the blocks. I'd suggest cutting them individually so that you don't short the remaining cables when you make the cut. If you're using a phone system that actually uses those cables, they will be live, so you don't want to create a permanent short between cables, in which case the telephone system won't work. If you only use cell phones, then you probably don't have a telephone system from an ISP or telephone company connected to those blocks, in which case there might not be any live connection with an ISP or telephone company system. In that case, those blocks should be dead and it won't matter how you cut them, except of course if you have plans to use them for telephone purposes in the future.
3. Punch those cables down into RJ-45 Keystones. You need a punch-down tool for this. This isn't hard to do. There is a 568A and 568B wiring standard which determines the wire pair to keystone punch down location. Usually the keystone itself has a guide which shows both standards. Pick one standard and use that for all keystone punchdowns.
4. Install the keystones into a short patch panel which is mounted into the structured wiring cabinet which currently holds the telephone blocks. If you had no further use for any of the telephone wiring, you could simply cut the cables from the blocks and remove the blocks from the wiring cabinet just to make room for the patch panel.
5. At the room cable location, have a look at how those cables are connected to the wallplate. They should be connected for telephone purposes. Cut the cables at the mounting point on the wallplate. If you have really old wallplates, then the cables will be screwed down to the wallplate, in which case you can simply loosen the screws, remove the wire pairs and trim then slightly so that you can punch them down into a keystone. Depending on what wallplates are currently installed, you might have to replace them with new wallplates which will accept keystones. Also in that case, you might have to install keystones for RG-6 cabling.
6. With the keystones at the panel mounted into a patch panel and the keystones upstairs mounted into their wallplates, test each cable with a network cable tester. That will ensure that each wire in the ethernet cable is punched down correctly at both ends and that the ethernet cable will be ready for use. Never assume that you've punched down the cable and that it will work perfectly, end to end without testing. That's a recipe for hours of troubleshooting, trying to determine where the problem is.
6. After that, connect the keystones at the panel to an unmanaged gigabit switch by using short jumper cables. Connect the modem or router to one of the switch ports and you're ready to go, done.

Note that you can install RJ-45 jacks on the cables at the panel instead of keystones. In that case you simply connect the cables to the gigabit switch after you've tested the cables with a network tester. I recommend using pass-through connectors with the appropriate RJ-45 crimper which cuts the excess wire length off of the connector.

You'll need to buy the necessary tools and parts which includes:

1. Wire cutter
2. a 110 punch down tool
3. RJ-45 crimper
4. Network test tool
5. RJ-45 keystones for Cat 5 cables
6. RJ-45 connectors for Cat 5 cables (maybe)
7. Small patch panel (maybe, depending on what you use at the panel, keystones or connectors)
8. Wallplates for upstairs to mount the RJ-45 keystones
9. short patch cables (if you use a patch panel with mounted keystones)
10. Unmanaged gigabit switch. You could use a managed gigabit switch depending you what you want to accomplish. Just to note, there are switches out with 2.5 Gb/s ports. If any of your equipment has 2.5 Gb/s ports, you might want to consider a switch that uses 2.5 Gb/s ports. They are more expensive than a typical gigabit switch, but, that price differential is continually dropping.

Here's a kit that has most of what you would need: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07W88S9RG/?tag=smallncom-20

There are other took kits shown on that page, just depends on how much money you want to spend.

Wire cutter:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07PJKRL4R/?tag=smallncom-20


My personal preference is to use pass through connectors and crimper such as the following:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B076MGPQZQ/?tag=smallncom-20

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B076PT3BMM/?tag=smallncom-20

Cat 6:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B076Q4MXVB/?tag=smallncom-20

There are numerous Youtube videos that demonstrate the installation of the keystones and connectors. This isn't hard to do, you simply have to take your time, pay attention to the 568A or 568B wiring standard for the keystones and test the cables to ensure that they are punched down correctly or that the connectors are installed correctly, again using the 568A or 568B standard.

Just to note, that telephone block marked "security" would have been the block that the alarm system was connected to. That block would allow the alarm system to seize the telephone line to call the alarm company, if required.

Edit 1:

In the rooms where you have existing ethernet ports, pull the wallplate off of the wall and have a look at the ethernet cable to see if its marked with a location code of some type. Then look for that same cable in the structured wiring panel in order to determine what telecom block is used for the ethernet cabling. Looking at the telecom blocks, their not all connected in the same fashion, that is to say that some of the cabling is punched down using all 4 wire pairs and it looks like one block is punched down using 2(?) wire pairs. And, the punch down locations are not the same for that particular block. Its hard to tell from the pictures exactly how many wire pairs are used for that one block. So, first thing I would do is look at the upstairs wallplates to see if the ethernet cabling is marked with a particular location code of some type and then match that up with the telecom panel cable codes in order to understand what telecom blocks are used for telecom or ethernet purposes and how those cables are connected to those blocks. This is all part of the first step to identify the correct cables so that you can disconnect them, install the right keystones and eventually connect them to a gigabit switch.

Note for 100 Mb/s service, all you need is two wire pairs connected end to end. For gigabit service you need all four wire pairs connected end to end.
 
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if you are buying a crimp tool, i strongly suggest using Platinum or Klein tools rather than many of the cheap brands. They can work, but i always had fewer issues using the Klein tool.

here is the one i use

Klein Tools VDV226-110​

 
Edit 2:

Looking at the pictures, it appears that you might have two RG-59 or RG-6(?) cable runs to each room. If you remove a wallplate from one of the rooms, I think you should see two Cat-5e cables and two RG-59 or RG-6 cables sitting in the electrical box. If that's the case I'd suggest installing a keystone wallplate with four slots for keystones, two keystones with F-81cable connectors, one with a Cat-5e keystone and one with an RJ-11 keystone assuming that you're going to maintain a house telephone system.

With two RG-59 or RG-6 runs to each location you have a lot of flexibility to use one cable for FM antenna purposes and one cable for OTA TV purposes. Ideally you would have an external antenna for OTA TV use, however, if the stations that you're looking to use are local stations, you can use an appropriate TV antenna which is located in one of the upstairs rooms, connected to one of those cables. Selecting which antenna is appropriate and where to install it will depend on what you're trying to do, use local or distant stations. For local stations, you don't need a large external antenna, for longer range stations then yes, either an attic or external mounted antenna would be optimal. Here's a link to TV Fool and the FDD site, which you can use to determine what stations you can detect from your house location:



Use the link to Check your Address for Free Tv and follow the next links to enter your house location and generate a map to show what you might expect for tv station detection.

Here's an example of an antenna that you can use from some location within the house:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YJ4G938/?tag=snbforums-20

.... and yes, rabbit ears do work. I use an old set of rabbit ears that I had lying around and it works very well. And then you can go to something like this:


You can sit either one of those in some unobtrusive place, perhaps behind a cabinet upstairs and connect that to one of the RG-59/RG-6 cables that runs back downstairs. At the structured wiring cabinet downstairs, determine what cables you want to feed and match that number with an appropriate splitter that will handle the number of cables that you want to feed. That will keep the signal losses thru the splitter to a minimum, otherwise, you would need a powered antenna or a signal amp. Again, this depends on what you're looking for, local stations or distant stations.

What I would do for experimental purposes is determine which cable feeds the main tv location and cross connect the upstairs antenna cable with the tv cable using an F-81 connector which looks like this:


At the main tv, connect the cable to the tv and run the tv's auto tuner, which will search thru the VHF and UHF bands for any available tv station broadcasts and store those in memory. With the F-81 connector installed, that's the best you can do, in terms of the number of stations that you can detect. Then, swap out the F-81 connector for the splitter that you intend to use and check all of the tv channels on the main tv. See if you end up with any pixelation due to signal losses thru the splitter. If all of the stations still work, then you should be ok with the splitter, and in theory, all of the other tv's should find the same number of tv stations when you run thru their auto tuning process. If you end up with pixelation on some of the stations, you will have to judge whether or not its worth the money to run a powered antenna or a powered amp to maintain use of the pixelated stations.

One item to note, looking at the pictures, it looks like those cables might be RG-59 cables instead of RG-6 cables. Check the jacket of the cables to see what type the cables happen to be. RG-6 would be the preferred type, while RG-59 is the previous cable system installed for OTA antenna purposes. RG-6 is 75 ohm impedance, while RG-59 is 50 ohm impedance. RG-59 is a smaller cable with less shielding compared to RG-6. That impedance can make a difference as you need to pay attention to any antenna transformers that you might need to use, and to the splitter impedance. If the cabling is RG-59 (50 ohm), then you would want to use a 300 to 50 ohm transformer to connect the antenna to the cable. If the cable is RG-6, then you would want to use a 300 ohm to 75 ohm connector to connect the antenna to the cable. These days, I suspect that most internal antenna will have an RG-6 cable already installed, so you're stuck with potentially connecting a 75 ohm antenna cable to a 50 ohm house cable. It is what it is. All you can to is use TV Fool or the FCC site to determine what stations you could potentially detect, and compare that with the results on the tv.
 
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If they are RG 59 instead of RG 6, then MOCA likely will be limited on bandwidth. MOCA 2 will work, but it may sync at lower speeds - MOCA 1.1
 
Personal opinion, I'd get the Cat 5e cabling and its connectors tuned up and install a multi-gigabit switch to run 2.5 Gb/s over Cat 5e. But ..... you need to have devices that have 2.5 Gb/s ports in order to take advantage of the higher data rates and to make it worth the money that you might consider investing. There are MoCA 2.5 adapters which have 2.5 Gb/s ports but, once again, you would have to have devices which have 2.5 Gb/s ports in order to really see the benefit of buying MoCA 2.5 adapters. There's a cost trade off, one 2.5 Gb/s switch versus several MoCA 2.5 adapters, one for each potential location.




https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085VGD2D6/?tag=snbforums-20
 

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