Gigabit speed possible over Cat5?

[scottyja]

We're buying a house that was built in 1998 and is not pre-wired. I haven't checked, but a friend told me a lot of the homes built then were wired for phones with Cat5 and were terminated using only 2 of the 4 twisted pairs. If this is true, would I be able to terminate each end and get Gigabit speeds?

We will have the cable internet/modem in the office where our NAS and two office computers are, so there's not a concern there. However, we will have a Media Center PC in the basement that will stream from the NAS. I would love to have that running at 1000 Mbps. We will also have an Xbox 360 acting as a Media Center extender upstairs, but the Xbox port is 100 Mbps, so not an issue.

I originally thought of 500 Mbps powerline adapters, but the upstairs office and the downstairs livingroom are on completely separate panels, so I don't think we'd get great speed from that.

I looked all over and people seem split on the ability of getting 1000 Gbps over Cat5. Anyone here actually doing it and getting decent transfer rates?

Thanks!

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
When I tried CAT 7 in my house it could do ~800mb/s constant. If I were you I'd spend little more and lay the CAT 7 and forget about cables.

 

[stevech]

We're buying a house that was built in 1998 and is not pre-wired. I haven't checked, but a friend told me a lot of the homes built then were wired for phones with Cat5 and were terminated using only 2 of the 4 twisted pairs. If this is true, would I be able to terminate each end and get Gigabit speeds?

We will have the cable internet/modem in the office where our NAS and two office computers are, so there's not a concern there. However, we will have a Media Center PC in the basement that will stream from the NAS. I would love to have that running at 1000 Mbps. We will also have an Xbox 360 acting as a Media Center extender upstairs, but the Xbox port is 100 Mbps, so not an issue.

I originally thought of 500 Mbps powerline adapters, but the upstairs office and the downstairs livingroom are on completely separate panels, so I don't think we'd get great speed from that.

I looked all over and people seem split on the ability of getting 1000 Gbps over Cat5. Anyone here actually doing it and getting decent transfer rates?

Thanks!

nice to have gigE, but it's unlikely that you'll max out 100BT with what you're planning.

cat5e if run isn't too long will probably do.

 

[00Roush]

I think I have a few Cat 5 cables around here that I have used with my gigabit network at one time or another. From what I recall I have been able to do 100+ MB/sec no matter what cable I used. Cat 5, Cat 5e or Cat 6. I should note however that most of my cables are 25 feet and under. I think the longer runs are where the differences between the cables can be noticed.

00Roush

 

[stevech]

From what I recall I have been able to do 100+ MB/sec no matter what cable I used.
00Roush

To clarify: "100MB/sec" means 100 megabytes (big B) per sec = 800Mbps (bits/sec).

Just pointing this out as many non-geeks get Bps and bps mixed up.

 

[scottyja]

I think I have a few Cat 5 cables around here that I have used with my gigabit network at one time or another. From what I recall I have been able to do 100+ MB/sec no matter what cable I used. Cat 5, Cat 5e or Cat 6. I should note however that most of my cables are 25 feet and under. I think the longer runs are where the differences between the cables can be noticed.

That's good to know. I think I'll attempt using the cables as-is for now, and then try powerline as a backup. I'm really trying to avoid running new cables throughout the house. That sounds like a pain.

 

[claykin]

In most cases a good quality Cat5 cable of shorter length will be able to handshake at GigE and push data within the range of GigE. Depending on the cable quality and length you may not achieve the same speed as if you used a quality Cat5e/6 cable of same length. Try it and see how it works for you.

Also keep in mind that most desktop NIC's wil not saturate GigE standards. That is they won't achieve 100+MB/s which is possible with GigE.

 

[aaronwt]

The gigabit spec was designed for Cat5e cables. However a true Cat5 cable cannot achieve gigabit speeds. But many cat5 cables were built to cat5e specs. Once the specs were proposed, many manufacturers started making them to the Cat5 e specs. At work we have thousands of true cat5 patch cables in storage. You cant get a gigabit link from any of them.

And a cat5e cable is good for 100 meters for gigabit. At home I've been running gigabit over cat5e for eleven years now with no issues.

 

[tipstir]

No one going to get 1GBps it will be more than less 800mbps even with CAT5e 350Mhz rated. As we move into 10GBps for the those averages 6-7GBps in enterprise environment.

10mbps = 6mbps
100mbps = 60mbps
1000mbps = 600mbps
10000mbps = 6000mbps

Most routers can do 500mbps and some can do 800mbps.

 

[00Roush]

Aaronwt and Tipstir I have to respectfully disagree.

My understanding is the IEEE 802.3ab standard (1000BASE-T aka Gigabit Ethernet) was originally developed for use with Cat 5 cabling. So provided the Cat 5 cable is made up of 4 twisted pairs of wires it should be able to support Gigabit Ethernet. However actual data transfer at full gigabit speed over a long Cat 5 cable is probably not going to happen.

In my experience most computers built within the last 4 years or so that have gigabit ethernet can do 800+ Mbps of raw throughput in simple gigabit network. Some have been lower for me but typically that is when the NIC is PCI based. Again this based on just my own observations.

00Roush

 

[stevech]

good cat5/5e will work OK for gigabit ethernet for modest cable lengths. I'll guess that means 25 ft. or less.

The difference in the cable categories is simply the methods used to reduce the capacitance per ft., that being an attenuator of increasing negative impact as the rates/frequencies increase.

 

[tipstir]

Aaronwt and Tipstir I have to respectfully disagree.

My understanding is the IEEE 802.3ab standard (1000BASE-T aka Gigabit Ethernet) was originally developed for use with Cat 5 cabling. So provided the Cat 5 cable is made up of 4 twisted pairs of wires it should be able to support Gigabit Ethernet. However actual data transfer at full gigabit speed over a long Cat 5 cable is probably not going to happen.

In my experience most computers built within the last 4 years or so that have gigabit ethernet can do 800+ Mbps of raw throughput in simple gigabit network. Some have been lower for me but typically that is when the NIC is PCI based. Again this based on just my own observations.

00Roush

Some routers here like the ESR9850 could get 800MBps in a LAN to LAN over Gig using PCI-E to PCI-E. Most routers can only max out at 430MBPs. What I got here now max out at 730MBPs. I just updated the developer system to net gen CPU and system FSB is now UIM 5 G/T instead of the old M/T. But I'll need a second system to test the full UIM 5 G/T over PCI-E Gig over LAN to LAN through New L2 Managed Switch. So far the UIM 5 G/T WAN to LAN is really quick.

I am only using CAT5e 350MHz cables too me they do a very good job. I use to setup with CAT5 with ADSL to boost those connects to higher yield way back in the day.. Today on second Cable Modem with another ISP using CAT5e and Coax Ultra RG6 2.3GHz. Good enough for now.

 

[aaronwt]

No one going to get 1GBps it will be more than less 800mbps even with CAT5e 350Mhz rated. As we move into 10GBps for the those averages 6-7GBps in enterprise environment.

10mbps = 6mbps
100mbps = 60mbps
1000mbps = 600mbps
10000mbps = 6000mbps

Most routers can do 500mbps and some can do 800mbps.

I've been getting 900Mb/s+ throughput on my network for many, many years. (I first went gigabit at home back in 2001, but back then I was only getting around 550Mb/s throughput, PC to PC, when I would do my weekly transfer of my OTA HD recordings to my PC I used for network storage)
I had been using RAID 0 setups for a long time and now SSDs in my main PCs. 900Mb/s+ throughput should be no issue PC to PC with a gigabit switch. If you are only getting 800Mb/s then something is preventing faster speeds.

 

[aaronwt]

Aaronwt and Tipstir I have to respectfully disagree.

My understanding is the IEEE 802.3ab standard (1000BASE-T aka Gigabit Ethernet) was originally developed for use with Cat 5 cabling. So provided the Cat 5 cable is made up of 4 twisted pairs of wires it should be able to support Gigabit Ethernet. However actual data transfer at full gigabit speed over a long Cat 5 cable is probably not going to happen.

In my experience most computers built within the last 4 years or so that have gigabit ethernet can do 800+ Mbps of raw throughput in simple gigabit network. Some have been lower for me but typically that is when the NIC is PCI based. Again this based on just my own observations.

00Roush

I only know that I have never seen a true Cat5 cable get gigabit speeds. We have $10K+ cable testers at work that will verify the cable specs. And every cable we have ever tested, that was only made to true Cat5 specs, was not able to connect at gigabit speeds. While every cable we've tested that was built to Cat5e specs(many that were labeled only Cat5) were able to get gigabit speeds.

By the late 90's any cable that had Cat5 written on it would typically pass Cat5e certification.

 

[tipstir]

I've been getting 900Mb/s+ throughput on my network for many, many years. (I first went gigabit at home back in 2001, but back then I was only getting around 550Mb/s throughput, PC to PC, when I would do my weekly transfer of my OTA HD recordings to my PC I used for network storage)
I had been using RAID 0 setups for a long time and now SSDs in my main PCs. 900Mb/s+ throughput should be no issue PC to PC with a gigabit switch. If you are only getting 800Mb/s then something is preventing faster speeds.

Good to see you go back far in the years like I've but still your network and mine are not going to be the same mix of hardware.

WAN to LAN Streaming HD over the internet to HD 1080p MNT and ran the LAN to LAN test for 1GB file shows me 808MB/s from my file server. I'll run another test when the network is not so busy..

 

[stevech]

My gigabit LAN experience is that to get over about 700Mbps I have to have a big (video) file for sequential disk reads and a fast PC on both ends to keep the TCP overhead low.

 

[tipstir]

My gigabit LAN experience is that to get over about 700Mbps I have to have a big (video) file for sequential disk reads and a fast PC on both ends to keep the TCP overhead low.

6GB of HD video streaming from file server to NMP no issues. I can have 5x of theses and no issues. But again everyone hardware, setup is going to be different. 808MB still very good out 1GB. If I get higher than that would be good.

 

[stevech]

6GB of HD video streaming from file server to NMP no issues. I can have 5x of theses and no issues. But again everyone hardware, setup is going to be different. 808MB still very good out 1GB. If I get higher than that would be good.

I suggest that we all make a habit of using the industry standard "b" for bits and "B" for bytes, so "Mbps" is megabits/sec and "MBps" is megabytes per second. It's tough when people don't all use the same meanings.

Splitting hairs, there are conventions too for kilo, mega and giga, to differentiate 1,000 versus 1,024 and so on.

 

[tipstir]

I suggest that we all make a habit of using the industry standard "b" for bits and "B" for bytes, so "Mbps" is megabits/sec and "MBps" is megabytes per second. It's tough when people don't all use the same meanings.

Splitting hairs, there are conventions too for kilo, mega and giga, to differentiate 1,000 versus 1,024 and so on.

Well I use mbps always. I only use the mb/s since the prior member was using it. I only seen it like that in the BT clients. Still is' mbps and gbps.

 

[moosport]

if I understand correctly, you're hoping to use the existing phone line but wired the remaining 2 wires. Phone outlets are normally wired in serial so you can only plug in 1 machine at anytime.


I had a contractor wired my house to each drop but he did in serial to save the wires. in the end, my friend and me had to redo the wiring and termination.