Question HELP Cat5E wire issues- 1 wire not detecting

[hipertec1]

Hi, I have my house ran with Cat5E wires when the house was built. One of the wires going from my router to my home switch is not detecting #8 wire (Brown?).
So 7 out of the 8 is reading thru my ethernet cable tester. When it gets to #8, its not showing and then starts over again from #1 - #7 wires. So I think there is a break on this brown wire?

When I plug this cable to my router and the other end to my switch (100/1000), there is no power and not connecting. But when I connect to my Linksys Velop Mesh router with the built-in ethernet port, the switch reads the connection but on 100mbs speed.

Does anyone know how I can fix this to get full 1000 speed? I need this cable to be at 1000 as it will go from my router to my switch at a different part of the home and unfortunately, I cannot replace the cable as its wired when the house was built.

Im hoping there is a way I can wire it and not needing to use all 4 pairs and/or a solve so I can get my router connected to my giga switch.

 

[VirtualLarry]

As far as I am aware, 1000Base-T (Gigabit ethernet) requires ALL FOUR PAIRs. If the cable is damaged, it needs to be replaced. Or the ends modified, to carry only two pair, for 10/100 ethernet. Sorry, them's the breaks.

But if your home was wired for Cat5e, was it a "structured wiring" job? If so, it may have Coax installed as well. Depending on your splitters (may need to replace them with higher band-pass), you can connect a pair of gigabit ethernet to Moca 2.5 adapters. Research MOCA and ethernet over Coax. It might an option, to carry gigabit-ish speeds where your main ethernet cable is damaged. (One reason why they say that when you're running wires, always run two sets.)

 

[SamirD]

Depending on your home warranty, this may be covered by the contractor as it is a manufacturing defect. Otherwise as virtuallarry mentioned, moca may be your only hope..."help me moca 2.0, you're my only hope" haha. I should make a meme for this.



Meme done.

 

[VirtualLarry]

@SamirD , nice meme! LOL.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Ok, please provide pics of cabling, picks of the cable jacket and heads are best.

Questions for you to ask while inspecting cables

1. What type of cabling is used?
2. Question 1 determines the termination type used
- If it's solid core cable ( aka "riser") then keystones are the termination type to use
- if it's stranded cabling ( aka "patch") then RJ45 heads are the termination type to use

Using the wrong termination types can easily cause pinout problems. Also, using the right termination types but doing the termination work poorly can cause pinout problems as well.

Just investigate the cabling, write stuff down, and inspect the terminations

3. Are you trying to provide power to the remote switch using PoE? Your second line kinda reads that way. I would be very careful using PoE over the link until you have the pinout issue resolved. You will be plugging / unplugging this during PD and could misplug something and fry a device's NIC

 

[ch33zw1z]

I like the meme, but I'm not sure why were jumping to moca before inspecting the existing cabling

 

[razel]

Pre-wired home so I take it there are jacks in the wall. Remove the cover and both ends and see if there is slack for you to redo the ends. Otherwise, the cut or compromised portion is elsewhere. Try to figure out if anyone or anything dug into the wall or moved something recently. Otherwise since your home is pre-wired, I'm sure there's another jack somewhere you can cleverly use.

 

[hipertec1]

Thanks guys for the suggestions on the MeMe route. As for the cabling questions:
1. using solid core cable CAT5e with keystone termination. I did redo the termination on both ends but still #8 brown wire is not being read. Ill redo both ends tonight. Maybe I might get lucky.
2. I need this cable to run from my Router/Modem to my 16 port switch in another room. That is why I need 1000mbs speed. If I run 2 pair wire (100mbs), I believe then all my devices hooked up to the switch will be at 100mbs?

Another option since its a cable to be used from my modem/router to a 16 port switch...was to use a powerline adapter like the TP Link ones OR use the 100 mbs (2 pair wire) route?

What do you guys think or best option to go with?

Ok, please provide pics of cabling, picks of the cable jacket and heads are best.

Questions for you to ask while inspecting cables

1. What type of cabling is used?
2. Question 1 determines the termination type used
- If it's solid core cable ( aka "riser") then keystones are the termination type to use
- if it's stranded cabling ( aka "patch") then RJ45 heads are the termination type to use

Using the wrong termination types can easily cause pinout problems. Also, using the right termination types but doing the termination work poorly can cause pinout problems as well.

Just investigate the cabling, write stuff down, and inspect the terminations

3. Are you trying to provide power to the remote switch using PoE? Your second line kinda reads that way. I would be very careful using PoE over the link until you have the pinout issue resolved. You will be plugging / unplugging this during PD and could misplug something and fry a device's NIC

 

[ch33zw1z]

If you suspect the break in the cable is in a spot that makes the whole run bad, you've run out of options. If the builder ran the cabling in some kind of conduit then you could potentially repull the run. If it's not in conduit, repulling the run will likely be a tougher action, but depending on where the rooms are maybe not impossible. Moca, power line, wireless reapters / bridging are your options.

 

[razel]

One bad wire gone bad got me thinking if you can try 2.5G over copper Ethernet (being more affordable than before) and see if with one bad wire it'll fall back to 1gig which might still be plenty for you.

 

[hipertec1]

One bad wire gone bad got me thinking if you can try 2.5G over copper Ethernet (being more affordable than before) and see if with one bad wire it'll fall back to 1gig which might still be plenty for you.

What is 2.5G over copper ethernet? If it works and cost effective, 1Gig or close to this speed will work since my switch is 1Gig max.

 

[Fallen Kell]

One bad wire gone bad got me thinking if you can try 2.5G over copper Ethernet (being more affordable than before) and see if with one bad wire it'll fall back to 1gig which might still be plenty for you.

2.5G will not help as it requires even more of the cable in the wall than 1GbE. If there is a break in a wire, 2.5GbE will fail. It may even fail without a full break, but just a hard bend that causes a partial fracture in the wire (i.e. the wire is still electrically connected but the fracture in the surface causes increased noise in the signal/waveform on the line).

As said, 1GbE (and above) requires all pairs.

Before you go attempting to replace the ends of the cable, if you have a multimeter, I would try and do some continuity tests. I would scratch away some of the insulation on the bad wire before it goes into the endpiece and check that it has continuity with the other side of the connector (do this on both ends). If you have continuity on each end from before the end piece to the wire in the rj45 connector, than the problem will not be fixed by replacing the end pieces (please note that if you do find that you do not have continuity on one end, you will still need to replace the other end that you performed this test on).

 

[sdifox]

Do you know if they were stapled to stud? If not you might be able to pull through a new run using the old run as snake.

Where is the switch and where is the internet coming in?

I was able to pull through vaccum conduit hole gap.