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Help with gigabit connection

N

netsysadmin

Senior member
Ok guys I have a question for you. I am wiring up my house with cat5e runs to most of my house back to a wiring closet. Everything was going great until yesterday when I finally got a chance to add my new Dell gigabit switch into the mix. It will not negotiate a gig connection with the main Dell switch in the wiring closet...it drops to 100...I even tryed to force the 1000 connection...no go. So I tryed hooking the switch up directly to the switch in the closet via a short patch cable and it worked at 1000.

My next question was if my connections/punches into the patch panel and the jacks are crappy. So I made up a short one foot connection from my patch panel to a jack to simulate one of my runs throughout the house, and it works also. So I am at a loss as to why I cannot get a gig connection. I tryed every run in the house(10) which I know at least eight of them are right at 50 feet and none would negotiate a gig connection? I made sure when I was running the cables the bends were within the specs and I did not pull hard on the cables...everything should be to spec. Also all the patch panels and jacks are cat5e rated? Any Ideas??

Equipment List:

Dell 3324 Switch
Dell 2608 Switch
Belkin 5e patch panel
Leviton 5e keystone jacks
General Cable Cat5e Cable

PS....I am a Netowrk Admin so I do have some experience running cables

Thanks for any info,

John
 
My only guess is that it is the cabling. I would check all of your connections to make sure that they are terminated properly. I know that you said that you made a cable that worked fine but it does not hurt to double check. Also, you may be getting EMI from something in your house that is causing interference that prevents you from negiotating at 1000. Also, maybe you can borrow a cable tester from work since you are a network admin.
 
netsysadmin, the Dell 26xx switches are reputed to have a lot of link/negotiation type problems. You might be running into design problems of that switch.

Check your terminations and make extra sure they're done correctly (e.g., maintain twist up to the punch, and the pairs all connected and all as close in length as possible). 1000BaseT is much more sensitive to termination quality than 100BaseTX was, and some 1000BaseT chipsets do signal quality tests of the line and refuse to negotiate 1000BaseT if they think the link can't support it.
 
OK I found something that may help this problem. I remembered I had a cable continuity tester here so I just checked all my patches and they all have a common problem. cables 7 & 8 are not showing continuity? Now I could understand one run but all of them? How could I be missing 7 & 8 on every one? I re-punched then and nothing? Tomorrow I will re-terminate one on both ends to see if I can fix the problem.

PS....Is it ok to use a 110 spring loaded punch down tool on the keystone jacks?

John
 
No 7 & 8 are patched correct on both ends. Oh and my lines are from two seperate cable spools bought a long time from each other....so I dont think its a bad role of cable? I am starting to think its a bad patch panel? Even if my terminations were really untwisted and too long I still should in theory show up good on a continuity test i would think.

Thanks for the ideas so far!

John
 
do you have any cables that the 7 and 8 lines work? perhaps it is the device you are using to test the cables which isnt working properly
 
netsysadmin, do you have a multi-meter or simple continuity tester with sharp probes you could use to verify that in fact pin 8 on the RJ45 jack has continuity to brown/white on the 110 block? You may have defective or corner-cutting jacks there. For 100BaseTX, nobody'd notice...

A spring-loaded punch-down tool is great, it makes a strong punch. Find a hard surface (or in a pinch, the spot on your wall backed by a stud) to lay the jack side on, and then punch.

Without all four pairs good, 1000BaseT won't work.
 
alexXx...yes on my short test piece that i made to test me termination skills all eight wires show continuity perfectly.

cmetz...Great idea!! I will probe the individual wire on a jack tonight and see if I can pinpoint where it is not making a connection.

Thanks again for the help!!

John
 
Ok guys I need to kick myself for this one!!! I am 99% sure I found my problem. I have been using a fox/hound toner to locate my wires in the rooms. Well guess what the toner had a RJ-11 plug on it. Apparently my patch panel did not like that.....I am pretty sure I fubared the number eight pin on all of the patch panel plugs. I know that I should be able to use a RJ-11 in a RJ-45, but I guess this patch panel did not like it. I am making a RJ-45 pigtail for the tester tonight!!

Lesson Learned!!!!

John
 
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