Better connection via wireless card or 100 ft Ethernet?

[Stg-Flame]

Finally moved into an apartment where I can have DSL as opposed to the Altell Aircard I have been using for the past year and a half. The only problem being is that the phone jack is downstairs in the kitchen and I have my PC in my bedroom upstairs. I was wondering if I would get a better signal/connection if I were to buy a 100 foot Ethernet cable and directly connect to the router or would I be better off saving my money and just sticking with the wireless adapter? As far as the length goes, it isn't 100 feet from from PC to my kitchen, I just cannot find a shorter cable that would reach.

Right now, I am getting three out of four bars of signal and I am pinging a steady 150 while playing online on a good server. When I connected my laptop directly to the router, I was getting four out of four bars and pinging in the low 60s on the same servers.

Also, I am planning on buying a TV for my consoles and setting them up downstairs as opposed to connecting them to my monitor - my new apartment just isn't big enough to have everything set up in my room like it was in the house from which I just moved. I know there are multiple ethernet ports in the back of the router, so I was wondering if I could have a 20 foot ethernet to my consoles and a 100 foot to my PC and not experience any ghosting or lag issues.

 

[spidey07]

Wired is always better than wireless. However 100 feet is far to long for a patch cable with stranded cable. If you can get a cable that is solid twisted pair that would be fine. Or you can get solid cable and punch it down into keystone jacks and then use patch cables on each end.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Wired is always better than wireless. However 100 feet is far to long for a patch cable with stranded cable. If you can get a cable that is solid twisted pair that would be fine. Or you can get solid cable and punch it down into keystone jacks and then use patch cables on each end.

I am not entirely sure what the last two sentences mean.

 

[seepy83]

To try and explain what Spidey is saying...

Patch cables use stranded copper for the 4 pairs of copper wires inside. If you were to cut one open, you would see that there are many little strands of copper inside each wire.

Solid cable uses 1 solid piece of copper in each of the 4 pairs of copper wires inside. If you were to cut it open, you would see 1 piece of copper is that thicker than the stranded copper used in Patch Cables.

100 feet is too long for stranded cable..it doesn't meet specifications.

As far as I know, you won't be able to find any store-bought cables that are crimped on solid copper.

Your best bet is to get solid cable and punch it down to keystone jacks (if you are not familiar with these, think of it like a phone jack but it would be RJ45 Cat5/5e/6 - whatever spec you are using). Then, at each end of the cable where you have keystone jacks, use a store-bought patch cable to connect to your devices.

The Solid Cable punched to keystone jacks should not exceed 90 meters, and the total distance of patch cable should not exceed 10 meters (so it is common to use a 5 meter cable on each end).

Hope that helps...

 

[JackMDS]

Guess what?

300 feet cable is better than Wireless too.

 

[Absolution75]

^ Agreed


Eh, just get a 100m (330ft) cat6 cable. It is rated up to gigabit speeds at that cable quality (if you're scared, then go for cat6a).

You could also put a bunch of powered switches every so often. I'd conenct at least a 5 port switch behind your pc directly from the router, giving you the ability to connect another system without running another 100m cable directly to the router.

Even at 100m, I still think pings from the pc to the router will be about 1ms aka don't worry about it.

 

[spidey07]

^ Agreed


Eh, just get a 100m (330ft) cat6 cable. It is rated up to gigabit speeds at that cable quality (if you're scared, then go for cat6a).

You could also put a bunch of powered switches every so often. I'd conenct at least a 5 port switch behind your pc directly from the router, giving you the ability to connect another system without running another 100m cable directly to the router.

Even at 100m, I still think pings from the pc to the router will be about 1ms aka don't worry about it.

LOL! It's moving at 70% of the speed of light. It's not going to be a big difference.

 

[Stg-Flame]

So I checked around on Newegg and it seems that they have two cables that I would need (hopefully).

Can anyone verify if these two would work for what I need?

Shorter for console gaming in my living room:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-016-_-Product

Longer for PC gaming upstairs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-191-_-Product

 

[gsaldivar]

Try to get Cat6 (good) or Cat6a (better) cable.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=105&cp_id=10232

 

[Stg-Flame]

Price is no bother for me considering RadioShack and Best Buy both want to charge me upwards of $90 for a 50' Cat5 Ethernet cable.

Thanks for the link. If it makes a noticeable difference, I shall be going with Cat6a, probably one 50ft STP molded and one 25ft of the same type.

 

[Emulex]

i use 100ft of cat6 flatwire 1mm indoors and monoprice crap-6 indoors. both work fine pushing backups at 100metres. always run two wires in case you roach one or need more bandwidth.

home depot sells the same chit a little cheaper.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Price is no bother for me considering RadioShack and Best Buy both want to charge me upwards of $90 for a 50' Cat5 Ethernet cable.

Thanks for the link. If it makes a noticeable difference, I shall be going with Cat6a, probably one 50ft STP molded and one 25ft of the same type.

STP? Shielded? Can someone here more knowledgable chime in as to why STP is not a good idea?

 

[spidey07]

STP? Shielded? Can someone here more knowledgable chime in as to why STP is not a good idea?

Shielded is a terrible idea and should be avoided at all costs. It's never used for ethernet. The problem is you have to have proper grounding and experience/training to install it properly otherwise the shield is just a big antenna and causes really bad noise problems. Just avoid STP, it's never used for this very reason.

 

[imagoon]

Shielded is a terrible idea and should be avoided at all costs. It's never used for ethernet. The problem is you have to have proper grounding and experience/training to install it properly otherwise the shield is just a big antenna and causes really bad noise problems. Just avoid STP, it's never used for this very reason.

To add one more note... improperly installed can also be a fire hazard. When the shield is tied down incorrectly on both ends, it can become a lower resistance path than the earth it self and start to carry current. You can see this effect with a multi meter and probing the ground in the general vicinity of the power pole grounds. Sticking the probes in the ground apart from each other will show an AC voltage.

 

[RebateMonger]

I use a 100 foot stranded patch cable, too, to run on the floor from my main office to a workroom. Yes, it's overly long, but I've had no problems with it. I use it sometimes to stretch part-way across the house when I need a more distant wired connection.

Maybe I'd get faster transmission with a shorter or solid cable, but I get 50 Mbps with my Realtek NICs and cheap Dlink gigabit switch. Works for me.

 

[imagoon]

I use a 100 foot stranded patch cable, too, to run on the floor from my main office to a workroom. Yes, it's overly long, but I've had no problems with it. I use it sometimes to stretch part-way across the house when I need a more distant wired connection.

Maybe I'd get faster transmission with a shorter or solid cable, but I get 50 Mbps with my Realtek NICs and cheap Dlink gigabit switch. Works for me.

Running outside of spec is always a craps shoot. It might work fine, it might fail hard or it might work "sorta." At home I find that "ok." *since your using it as a really long patch.

We have a division of installers and we have the testers to test all this stuff. The cable itself is the main decider in most cases. I have actually have 50 feet of stranded test better than 50 ft of solid. The solid was generic crap. The stranded was belden I am pretty sure..

 

[spidey07]

Running outside of spec is always a craps shoot. It might work fine, it might fail hard or it might work "sorta." At home I find that "ok." *since your using it as a really long patch.

We have a division of installers and we have the testers to test all this stuff. The cable itself is the main decider in most cases. I have actually have 50 feet of stranded test better than 50 ft of solid. The solid was generic crap. The stranded was belden I am pretty sure..

That's the real truth right there. You don't muck with the physical layer as it causes most of the problems. Category specification exists as a means of "If you follow this, results are positivley guaranteed optimal. If you don't, they are not guaranteed and you could have problems you don't know about"

 

[robmurphy]

I think the best use of Solid core Cat6 STP I have seen was the connection of RJ45 patch bays used for 2.048 M TDM E1 links. Using the shielded cable reduced signal loss, and meant many different test areas could all use some very expensive TDM test equipment.

For Gigabit Ethernet, as stated by people who know better than me, Cat5E is fine.

Rob.

 

[spidey07]

I think the best use of Solid core Cat6 STP I have seen was the connection of RJ45 patch bays used for 2.048 M TDM E1 links. Using the shielded cable reduced signal loss, and meant many different test areas could all use some very expensive TDM test equipment.

For Gigabit Ethernet, as stated by people who know better than me, Cat5E is fine.

Rob.

Believe it or not but the standard for T1/E1 is to use STP and it is installed by competent people that know proper grounding specifications.

 

[Stg-Flame]

So this has become fairly technical and out of my knowledge base. Can anyone do me a favor and just point out exactly which cable would fit my needs? One 50ft+ ethernet for gaming on my pc upstairs (cable will be run along the walls, ceilings, and across carpet if that makes any difference) and one 25ft cable for gaming in my living room.

 

[imagoon]

Believe it or not but the standard for T1/E1 is to use STP and it is installed by competent people that know proper grounding specifications.

Exactly. You don't see many home users using 2M E1s. Most of the installers using that stuff know how to ground it correctly.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Anyone?

 

[JackMDS]

Scroll down this page and choose the color and the length that you need.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10232

.

 

[heymrdj]

I'll just go on and jump in on some of the elitist stranded/solid copper arguments and stuff.

100ft is an extremely easy run. I bought this at xmas: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812189041

It's stranded, and runs between two gigabit switches. I get 82Mbits/s between to Win7 systems.

 

[spidey07]

I'll just go on and jump in on some of the elitist stranded/solid copper arguments and stuff.

100ft is an extremely easy run. I bought this at xmas: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812189041

It's stranded, and runs between two gigabit switches. I get 82Mbits/s between to Win7 systems.

Look. It's not elitist. It's category specifications. There's a reason why you get such low speeds. There's a reason why these standards exist, if you follow them you are guaranteed results. If you don't then roll the dice.

It's not just google powering some of the posters, it's real world experience for decades.