CAT5 Cabling question

[SteveC]

Hi All,

I'm just running some new CAT-5 cable through my house and have a bit of a problem. My old cable ran next to the mains cabling under the floor boards and has never run what I expect of full 100mbps performance - could the reason be because it runs alongside the mains cable and is getting interference or something from it? I'm running some new cable for my brother's bedroom now and it has to follow the same path... do you think that it matters that I'm running alongside a few main cables or should I move it all?

Or can I shield it in any way?

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[This message has been edited by SteveC (edited 31 January 2001).]

[SteveC]

Also, can TV (coax) aerial be affected if it runs alongside mains cable cos upstairs, our does, and our picture isn't fantastic...

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Guru]

Why not use a shielded cabel?

[SteveC]

Cos I was given a reel (~300m) of CAT-5 cable a while back, and I've got a lot of cables to run round the house...

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Pace]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by SteveC:
My old cable ran next to the mains cabling under the floor boards and has never run what I expect of full 100mbps performance</font>

What kind of performance do you get? Try going back to 10mb and test that

Paul.

[Greebe]

Steve, cat5 network cables are composed of two pairs of twisted wire. The reason for the twist is that it will reduce common mode noise like 60/50hz hum from power lines. So I doubt this would be the problem.

What is the max consistently sustainable transfer rate?

On the flipside broadcast signals are extremely weak and unless 75ohm coax is used in the downlead, the signal will be partially absorbed by the power lines and or multipath induced. 300ohm twinlead is normally used in such and while having a factor of 4X the signal strength does have this negative aspect.

[SteveC]

I can't remember what the actual transfer rate is I got, but I know that copying files over it, it's running at only a touch over 10mbps speed... It could be a dodgy network card in my dad's machine... I haven't really explored it.

The Coax is standard tv aerial cable, which if I remember rightly is 75 ohm, isn't it?

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Greebe]

yes 75ohm coax is the standard... no problem there... adjusting the heigth of the arial would make the biggest difference in reception.

[dZeus]

try to force 100Mbps on each card, and put them in half-duplex mode (and if that goes wrong, force them both in full-duplex mode).

I've got about 30 meters of CAT5 between my Linux server and my Win2k backend, and I can achieve about 7 to 8MBps sustained transfer. Of course I don't have a clue if either the network card, the network cable, any of the harddrives or anything else (OS?) is limiting the performance to 8MBps on my system... but the HDD is my best guess

Update: by downloading to a 'null' file on the Win2k backend, I could reach about 8,5MBps max. And the file I downloaded by ftp from my linux server was completely loading into memory, because I downloaded it several times after another, and at a certain point, the hdd light in the server didn't come on any more when I downloaded it (and when I reached peak performance). So at that point I reached 8.5MBps without one of the two hdd being the bottleneck. I don't know what the absolute max is for 100Mb, but I've heard something like 9 to 10MBps several times

[This message has been edited by dZeus (edited 01 February 2001).]

[xortam]

Yes, Cat 5 UTP is spec'ed to run 100 Mbps. TV is normally routed across 75 ohm RG6 (I use RG6/QS) or RG59 for HDTV. They even make cables that bunch Cat 5 w/ coax and fiber. Mike, Cat 5 consists of 4 pairs of twisted wires. I made myself a 100' Cat 5 cable to bypass my inside phone wiring in order to test the quality of the phone lines. I punched each of those little wires so I know intimately how many there were. I also ran Cat 5 between the rooms and used the Leviton Cat5 jacks and wall plates.

Here's the instructions on punching the jacks.

This local store has lots of info and parts for home automation ... Home Tech Solutions.

Steve, when you say "mains" are you referring to electrical conduit? What we here in the States would call Romex?

[SCompRacer]

Running any type of cable next to an electrical line can cause noise, best to run across than alongside to minimize. Sometimes you can't though.

I did my entire house in CAT 5 and RG6, bundling the cables together. Ran extra CAT 5 cabling for phone lines too. Goes to every room (except bathroom) with as many as three outlets per room with phone, LAN and Video outlets. Even did the garage.

Performance is good though I doubt the longest run exceeds 150-175 feet in total combined length. Never benched except for timimg a file size, works great.

I too used the Leviton outlets, and also used their media box to connect all in the basement. While searching for some electronic parts, saw that Leviton is not the only manufacturer of these items so shop around if doing it yourself.



[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 01 February 2001).]

[xortam]

Hell, some people even use Cat 5 to run video over long distances.

[Wombat]

SComp,
If you're using twisted-pair wiring with differential amplifiers, then noise isn't really an issue. You can transmit milliVolts across an auto-factory floor if you use a good differential system.

[Greebe]

xortam, for networking all that's needed in Cat5 cable is two pair, connections 1,2,3 and 6 only.

[SCompRacer]

Always tried to avoid problems running any kind of phone, LAN, intercom wiring around high voltage wiring, Wombat. Across is always better than next to, why invite possible problems.