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Helping my uncle's friend get his house wired up

Supermercado

Supermercado

Diamond Member
So I started helping my uncle's friend get his house wired up for cable internet and all. To make a long story short, I sprained my ankle before I was able to finish everything and it's well enough to finish now. I've got a quick question about the best way to do the job.

My uncle's friend and his wife live in a pretty big house spread over 3 levels. The cable signal comes in at one of the front corners of the house and they have a wire running across the house in some fashion to above the garage at the other front corner where her office is. The cable modem is in this room. There's also a Dell wireless router (I was telling them what to buy and they bought this... not what I told them to get 😛 ) hooked up that gives a few of the upstairs bedrooms the internet access they want. The problem is that they have two more desktop machines, one in the basement, two levels below the router, and one on the middle level all the way across the house. I'm not certain, but I don't think the wireless router can even reach the machine in the basement and I'm sure it won't reach the machine across the house.

So here's the question... what's the best/easiest/cheapest way to get these two machines connected to the router? It seems to me that the cheapest way would be to run cat5 under the house and just hardwire them. cat5 has an effective range of ~100 yards, right? The distance either of these machines is from the router is easily within 100 yards. This seems like a better solution than buying another router and having it hardwired to the first router and placed in a better location for the two desktops. Also requires the purchase of wireless cards or adapters for both machines. Both are already equipped with wired NICs.

I guess that's it. Kind of long, I know. Thanks for reading and I'd appreciate any ideas or solutions as to what the best course of action would be. Thanks.
 
Thanks. That's what I was thinking. Straightforward, he can do it himself or have someone do it (cuz I'm sure as heck not crawling around under his house 🙂 ), shouldn't take all that long, and there won't be any loss of speed over those distances, right?
 
Yeah, I would do the wired solution as well. Heck, while he is down there I would also drop a line to any other room he thinks they may want to be on the network in the future. Cat5 is actually 100 Meters for a max segment length, if I remember correctly, so unless he's in an insanely large house, I would think he is good to go on length.

That would be the cheapest way to go, and probably the easiest in the long run. Either way, he will be running cable to get to another WAP in another part of the house for those computers to maybe have a chance of getting signal. So, either way cabling work will be involved....

Just my $0.02
Jeff
 
Right. Thanks. 100 meters, you say? Even better. Not much difference between 100 yards ad 100 meters but every little bit, right? I'll mention to him that he might want to consider the possibility of future machines. I doubt they'll need it, though. They're setting the machines up in their office/recreation areas and no other places in the house would likely ever require internet (dining room, etc.). I'll see what he thinks, though, just for the sake of the future.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Yeah, I doubt the dining room would need the connection, but depending on their level of geekyness, you never can tell 😉

Jeff
 
Originally posted by: PTCvette
Yeah, I doubt the dining room would need the connection, but depending on their level of geekyness, you never can tell 😉
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have two ports in the dining room.

There's a nice table in there for someone to plop down a switch for when it's time for LAN partys 🙂

I wired with the motto: "Leave no room behind"
 
Originally posted by: Concillian
Originally posted by: PTCvette
Yeah, I doubt the dining room would need the connection, but depending on their level of geekyness, you never can tell 😉
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have two ports in the dining room.

There's a nice table in there for someone to plop down a switch for when it's time for LAN partys 🙂

I wired with the motto: "Leave no room behind"
Click to expand...


Heh... I hear that. I am working on wiring my house up, and there will be at least one port in the dining room too. Seems like it just makes good sense to have that big 'ol table right there that would fit about 4 computers, and have a nice jack already there for them 😉

Jeff
 
Originally posted by: PTCvette
Originally posted by: Concillian
Originally posted by: PTCvette
Yeah, I doubt the dining room would need the connection, but depending on their level of geekyness, you never can tell 😉
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have two ports in the dining room.

There's a nice table in there for someone to plop down a switch for when it's time for LAN partys 🙂

I wired with the motto: "Leave no room behind"
Click to expand...


Heh... I hear that. I am working on wiring my house up, and there will be at least one port in the dining room too. Seems like it just makes good sense to have that big 'ol table right there that would fit about 4 computers, and have a nice jack already there for them 😉

Jeff
Click to expand...

"Leave no room behind" hahaha, nice. If it were up to me, I might do the same. As for my uncle's friend, nah. I doubt if anyone in that house knows what a LAN is, what it stands for, or that they have one in their house, nevermind having LAN parties 😛

 
Hard wire it. I got the Dell router free in a Hot Deal and I'm glad it cost nothing. That Dell router has problem sending a signal to the next room.
 
Originally posted by: jt63
Hard wire it. I got the Dell router free in a Hot Deal and I'm glad it cost nothing. That Dell router has problem sending a signal to the next room.
Click to expand...
That's the same problem that they're having with their router. The son's bedroom who is the primary user of the wireless internet is maybe 20-30 feet straight distance through walls from the router and he gets a weak signal in his bedroom. I got a Netgear 11g router for $30 after rebates for myself and while I didn't actually take any of my hardware over to their house to test the range, I know mine is better than that. Oddly enough, the Netgear router is what I told them to buy since it was on sale. I never verified it but my dad said that that Dell router was like $100 or some other foolishness. Based on what I've heard, I woud agree - it's not worth much.
 
Don't know about "under the house", but if he has an open basement, as in no sheetrock, you've got a couple of options.

There is a common wall between the garage and the basement (well, not a common wall, but more like a common ring joist). Down low on the "common wall", in the garage, you should be able to drill a hole that comes out in the basement (this hole is key). Then it's an easy matter to drop 2 or 3 cat 5 cables down into the garage from the office above, across the garage, thru the hole, to the basement computer and any other 1st floor room that's drilled down into the basement.

A second option: Check to make sure there's only one heating/cooling system in the house. If so, then there's probably a return air shaft (not the heat shaft) running from the attic to the basement. Shoot a cable(s) from the office, into the attic, down the return air shaft (plenium rated cable would be nice here, but not necessary). Once your in the basement just route the cables to the computers.

A third option (on a roll here): If the basement is closed with sheetrock then it gets tougher. There's always a utility room that's open. This is your target room for all cables coming from all basement and 1st floor computers. Drill and fish into this area.
Run a cable outside the house, from the office. Locate the eye beam (usually runs the center of the house, holding up the staircase). If it's accessable in the utility room then drill a hole, from outside the house, that lines up with this eye beam, shoot a fish tape down the eye beam and into the utility room. Then it's an easy matter to pull the cable, from the office, into the utility room. Use the cables you ran from the computers as pull wires and pull from the utility room into the computers.

Note: If you put a switch somewhere in the basement then you only have to get one cable from the office to the basement.
 
can't you go past the 100 meter bit by using two routers? isn't there a bridge port on routers? have the 2nd router closer to the other section of the house.
 
Originally posted by: PorBleemo
Isn't there some regulation about installing RJ45 cable in the walls without some sort of certification?
Click to expand...

You should be fine. Unless you want to run the cable threw ductwork, then i think you usually ahve to go plenum. if you want to you can always check the codes in your town.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
can't you go past the 100 meter bit by using two routers? isn't there a bridge port on routers? have the 2nd router closer to the other section of the house.
Click to expand...

repeaters will work. so wont hubs (at least if they aren't passive)
 
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