house wired with cat5e - what do I do next?

warriorfan23

Senior member
Nov 11, 2001
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So I moved again, and my new house has ethernet jacks in every room. This is what is in the master bedroom closet.

cOPC2.jpg


D5Zdn.jpg


What do I do next if I want the whole house to be networked? Will I need to disconnect those numbered cat5e wires and reconnect them to a patch panel?

My goal is to enable every room to watch streamed video from my server via htpc or my wdtv box.
 

imagoon

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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From the looks of it you have a fancy phone splitter there. You will need to repatch on to a patch panel for network cables to work. I can't read the part number there so I can't confirm but I am 99% sure that is a simple "phone distribution" panel. I have no idea why they even bother installing those either while calling the house "wired for cat5." Yeah it is wired but wired uselessly. You also may want to pop a wall plate and make sure there is more than just the blue wires connected at the wall.

Bonus points for 568A which is rarely used in networking but works fine as long as the network jacks are wired 568A also.
 

seepy83

Platinum Member
Nov 12, 2003
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Kind of off topic, but it seems like builders almost always wire these back to the master bedroom. WTF is up with that? If I was going to wire my house, I would probably wire it to a utility room...there is no reason at all to have structured cabling terminate in the master bedroom.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
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The master bedroom is about the worst place to put it considering the only person likely to know what the hell to do with all the wires is the youngest in the household! More to the point the equipment you might put in there will hum and potentially make a reasonable amount of noise, a bedroom is not an appropriate place to terminate a network!
 

kornphlake

Golden Member
Dec 30, 2003
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You'll have to rip up the wires and terminate them on a cat5e patch panel, then you'll probably have to replace the RJ12 jacks with RJ45 jacks and verify the jacks are completely connected. It's going to be work, but not nearly as much work as pulling wire.
 

xSauronx

Lifer
Jul 14, 2000
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You'll have to rip up the wires and terminate them on a cat5e patch panel, then you'll probably have to replace the RJ12 jacks with RJ45 jacks and verify the jacks are completely connected. It's going to be work, but not nearly as much work as pulling wire.

and hes going to need to read the sticky in the forum. You'll be needing a punch down tool, OP

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2053136
 

warriorfan23

Senior member
Nov 11, 2001
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Thanks for the info! I'm going to work on this over the weekend.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2
 

warriorfan23

Senior member
Nov 11, 2001
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Another question. Will I lose phone line capabilities once I connect all the ethernet cables to the patch panel?
 

imagoon

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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Another question. Will I lose phone line capabilities once I connect all the ethernet cables to the patch panel?

If you are using that phone panel then "yes" but "no."

IE Once you patch to a panel, you can reuse the existing distro panel by attaching a jumper from the phone panel to a mod end (one of the few reasons to own a mod end tool.)

IE you do this: Terminate all the cat5e cable to the RJ45 Cat5e patch panel. Hook short patch cables to all the ports you want to use ethernet at. Then at jacks where you want phone, cut about 12-12 inches of cat5e in wall cable, attach a mod end to one end of the cable. Patch the other end to the existing phone panel in your picture. Plug the mod end in to the port on the patch panel.
 

seepy83

Platinum Member
Nov 12, 2003
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Another question. Will I lose phone line capabilities once I connect all the ethernet cables to the patch panel?

Yes. Some people would tell you that if you're running a FastEthernet (10/100) network, you can separate out 1 of the pairs and use it for a phone line. I can't quote you any specifications that are for or against doing that, but I have had a handful of people tell me that it's ill-advised.

What is the other bundle of non-terminated cables off to the left of your 1st picture? I can't tell from the picture if those can be used for phone jacks.


Edit: or what imagoon said above...I'm not familiar with what he's talking about.
Edit2: or maybe I am...I think he's saying how you could terminate everything to a patch panel, but then use some of the drops for phone and some for data. Not sharing any 1 drop from both phone and data.
 
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imagoon

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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Yes. Some people would tell you that if you're running a FastEthernet (10/100) network, you can separate out 1 of the pairs and use it for a phone line. I can't quote you any specifications that are for or against doing that, but I have had a handful of people tell me that it's ill-advised.

What is the other bundle of non-terminated cables off to the left of your 1st picture? I can't tell from the picture if those can be used for phone jacks.


Edit: or what imagoon said above...I'm not familiar with what he's talking about.
Edit2: or maybe I am...I think he's saying how you could terminate everything to a patch panel, but then use some of the drops for phone and some for data. Not sharing any 1 drop from both phone and data.

yeah my post is a mess. I am suggesting he make jumpers. IE take an 12-18" piece of solid core cat5e, punch it down to the existing block in the picture, then plug a RJ45 on there and crimp it to 568A and plug that in to the patch panel. That would make the RJ45 on the other end in to a phone jack. Let me see if I can find a picture at some point...

--edit--

I prefer this personally:

47609-EMP.jpg


You tie the phone down to the 110 on top then use patch cables to connect to the ports where you want phones. The approach I mentioned above is more like "cut a patch cable in 1/2 and terminate it on the 110 block then plug it in." Same idea.

Biggest issue with sharing a cable is the phone voltage can kick up frame errors on the Ethernet side. It is also not "standard" and will make things like PoE / 1 gig not work. Like Seepy I would wonder what all the unattached cables are for...
 
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skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,543
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I'd get a tone tool and tone all of it out, but that's me. I can make that copper do all sorts of stuff, alarms, automation, you name it. having all that in the walls is really priceless.
 

thestrangebrew1

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2011
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I was in your situation about 2 wks ago and got some tremendous help here on the forums. I'm curious because I have the same type of wiring, but what are the wires on the first pic to the left? Anyone know? None of my lines are labled or anything and I've got a mess in my panel full of those wires I'm trying to sort out.
 

imagoon

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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I was in your situation about 2 wks ago and got some tremendous help here on the forums. I'm curious because I have the same type of wiring, but what are the wires on the first pic to the left? Anyone know? None of my lines are labled or anything and I've got a mess in my panel full of those wires I'm trying to sort out.

While I can't read the wire information from the pic, some companies will pull a 14 or 12 gauge stranded cable to the low voltage boxes that are often plastic to provide grounds. It is often more for some sort of code the requires grounding points in all access boxes even if it is something like Ethernet which has no provisions for grounding. If that is 2 wire or 4 wire cable might also be phone or "pre-wired for security systems."

The information on the cable jacket would help.
 

warriorfan23

Senior member
Nov 11, 2001
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wow thanks for the helpful discussion!

I am going to finally get to work on this tomorrow and I can't wait. Also, I'll try to see what all those extra wires are in there.