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Mixing CAT5e and CAT5 = bad mojo?

S

spidey07

No Lifer
Just curious - has anybody done any serious testing of using CAT5e horizontal cabling with CAT5 panels/jacks/patch cables? For some reason I remember reading that this was causing some troubles early on with 5e and actually causing reflections and performance below CAT5.

some yahoo decided to hire somebody to wire a new office expansion and is having trouble (why this is suddenly my problem remains to be seen). First thing I noticed was the cat5 panels/jacks and cat5e cabling. Yahoo said office was certified cat5e.

So Mr. interoperability, what say you?
 
This is a wild (as in the children's book "Wild THings") guess but let me have a go at it. Keep in mind I have been known to be an idiot on mondays before 5:10pm

The Cat5e wires are twisted pairs twisted specially so they can tranmit at 350Mhz+ . Regular Cat5 is about 150 off the bat...
IF the Cat5e is tranfering at such a fast rate, maybe a data"jam" occurs at the wall jack, where the data is Reflected back because the wall jack cannot handle the throughput... basically overflow. Then again, I could be wrong.

Is the wiring in the walls cat5 or 5e? Basically, I am just guessing that interconnects have the same thoroughput properties as the actual cables themselves.

Bare in mind that I just took a physics final, and I'm feeling brustishly opaque at the moment...just wanted to help.

Hope you get an answer. I have never seen this phenomenon before( i always use equal wiring) and would like to see why it occurs, and what is done to correct it.

Good Luck


EDIT:

I may be at least partially correct if you are still getting the network to operate, albeit a little slowly. The error correction and headers on the individual bits should assure you of getting uncorrupted data at the other end. What kind of data-rate are you getting by the way?

If the problem keeps occuring, I'm sure peeps on AT will get wind of it. If it were up to me, I'd replace the jacks...a lot of work..but then again, I could convince my boss to give me raise or something..or some of those illegal mushrooms he....oh..I've said too much😱
 
I assumed most things work as fast as their slowest component. ? I thought that cat5e was merely CAPABLE of operating at faster speeds, but if there's some sort of bottleneck , (cat5 components), then it would simply operate at said botleneck's max throughput.

Heh. I'm far from an engineer so take anything I say as with a good helping of doubt.

-Rhi
 
Rhi,


It would seem that this would be the case, but then cables are simply cables and can't negotiate speeds. Probably the data is flying out of the comps and getting jammed precisely becasue the cables and/or jacks can't negotiate.


Doubt me too. 😀


ALmost forgot to include that last line😉
 
Well, by the book, the system should just perform as if Cat 5 components were installed everywhere. The UTPs are all the same nominal impedence, so things like impedence lumps and standing waves shouldn't be an issue (assuming all components are properly installed)...or at least they shouldn't be any more of an issue than a straight Cat5 installation.

SOME Cat5e / Cat6 cabling use 24/25ga wire instead of the usual 26ga...so it's conceivable (that being the case) that the punches are light/flakey (like a dinner roll?? no...as in marginal).

The biggest difference in performance is going to be from the jumpers to the panels (stranded into solid core). Most certification happens panel-to-panel, so perhaps fabricating some solid-core jumpers (for the purposes of testing) might be worth a try.

Ultimately, after you've looked at the signalling with a Sniffer-like device (looking for late collisions, and framing errors), and found some problems, the only course of action that'd give you any legal standing would be to hire a third party to come in and run certification testing on the plant.

I'd think a walk through the contract would be worth a shot too. If the contract is for Cat5e everywhere, make 'em change out the panels and cross-connects. If the contract is for Cat5 everywhere, I'd try to get 'em to choke up a certificaction report or bring 'em in for random testing of ports you designate. If X% of the ports fail, they repull or re-terminate untill it passes.

I'll try to talk to the folks at the Anixter Lab and see what they say about it. I'm in class this week, but I should be able to squeeze it in on a break.

Kind of a goofy situation, I hope you do a better job of hiding the body (of the person that arrainged this install) than the last time....

FWIW

Scott
 


<< Kind of a goofy situation, I hope you do a better job of hiding the body (of the person that arrainged this install) than the last time.... >>


yep, kindof pinning the tail on the jack a$$ right now. I've already requested test results for all runs...funny how the installer is having trouble producing them. Add to that the installer promised a 25 year guarntee (sounds fishy to me) means his a$$ is back in cert'ing every run, end-to-end.

Reason why I'm questioning physical layer is because I'm getting 1% packet loss on the LAN. I've got traces, I've got trending on port errors at one minute polls/per port (NONE BTW?). In my book that is unacceptable...you should never have packet loss on a LAN unless you have serious bandwidth/buffer problems. Again...why this is MY problem when some yahoo decides he can build a network is beyond belief. His VP has already had a talking to but that's just the 8th layer of networking.

So scott - you haven't heard of any problems with mixing cat5e and cat5 gear other than passing the lowest common denominator? cat5 that is.

thanks in advanced.
 


<< Again...why this is MY problem when some yahoo decides he can build a network is beyond belief. His VP has already had a talking to but that's just the 8th layer of networking. >>

How in the...sumb*tch can order wiring...not responsible for his actions...WTF?

You should keep ALL the cr@p that is ripped out, and use it to either fill up or block the offices of both whistlep3cker AND his sh*t-for-brains boss.

When they come around wondering how it got there, just shrug your shoulders and say "Dunno. Musta been the same way it got in our walls."
 
I haven't heard of any problems. I'll talk to the Anixter guys, maybe if things are slow they can set it up and sweep it...they got some pretty cool analysers (Big HPs, Tek, LeCroy....).

You wouldn't happen to know what the manufacturers are for the stuff do ya? There's a decent chance they've tested some or all of the parts/cable already. Send a PM if you're itchy about posting the brands on an open post.

Yeah, too bad it's not closer to Halloween...you could make a Cat5e spider web with a couple hand-picked bugs hanging in it for the rest of the company to see what happens to those who deviate from network (design) policy......

Anyway, I'll ask. Worse thing is they laugh at me and walk away....(last I heard they's pretty busy with the Fiber Levels program). They'd still have a good idea if there's been any problems (they are also part of the core tech support group).

How ya doin' Geese? Haven't seen ya around much...hope things are goin well....

BTW: If I disappear for a while, it's because what I thought was a glow-in-the-dark Sciatic nerve (well, it was cranked up) is instead/in addition to a herniated disk at L3/L4...the bulge is compressing my spinal cord ~70-80% so my legs ain't working very well right now. I'm going through the HMO paper mountain to get an Ortho consult, followed by some kind of surgery......I'm getting by, but looking forward to the knife.


FWIW

Scott
 
8th layer tall geese. Not that easy. I first have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he is a dumbass that is harmfull to the company (a loose cannon so to speak...a "cowboy") and document my actions and copy his boss, his boss's boss, his boss's boss's boss's and finally his boss's boss's boss's boss (VP) and then finally call a meeting with all of them without yahoo's attendance there by nailing him to the wall and presenting them a proposal that will solve their division's problems all the while making that department eat the cabling cost plus $200/hr internal charge back for my time plus replacing the netgear switches he plugged into the network to build this hunk of crap that all of a sudden "isn't working right".

That way I guarntee his dismissal without incident and wind up smelling like roses awaiting the kudoos for being a "take charge" kinda guy.

Still...anybody heard of any problem mixing the cable/jacks/patch panel.
 
Sorry I couldn't help much...this is not exactly my expertise..jsut trying to help out best i could 😀. Even so, it seems like your ideas on how to deal with him look good.






<< wind up smelling like roses awaiting the kudoos for being a "take charge" kinda guy. >>



Power to ya😀 Don't feel guilty for a moment.

1. He screwed up
2. Fry his ass😉
 
Generally the most that should happen is that the entire network should function as if it was all cat5. Cat5 and cat5e often come from the same stock (25-27 gauge); cat5 usually just doesn't pass all the tests or is a backfill.

Theoretically, cat5 should be certified up to Fast Ethernet speed, and cat5e up to copper Gigabit (I'll have to look that up though). Even if the cable is certified when it's on the spool, though, a puller can screw that up by running the cables poorly--insufficient grounding cable thickness, ground loop, running cable too near power lines, exceeding length limits, etc. etc. It needs to be tested after it's pulled, and it sounds like you need to look over your installer's shoulder while he (re)tests his cable pull.
 


<< How ya doin' Geese? Haven't seen ya around much...hope things are goin well.... >>

Tax season...*mumble grumble*

<< BTW: If I disappear for a while, it's because what I thought was a glow-in-the-dark Sciatic nerve (well, it was cranked up) is instead/in addition to a herniated disk at L3/L4...the bulge is compressing my spinal cord ~70-80% so my legs ain't working very well right now. I'm going through the HMO paper mountain to get an Ortho consult, followed by some kind of surgery......I'm getting by, but looking forward to the knife. >>

Yikes! :Q
We'll be prayin for ya!
 


<< 8th layer tall geese. Not that easy. I first have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he is a dumbass >>

Ah yes...the OSI Layer that can transcend both Time and Space...the DUMBA$$ Layer...

remember...there is no spoon...
 
Ah...who'm I kiddin'?

Real reason I've been away: my dedicated CS server for some folks from work to play. Work out some tax season frustration killing 'bots and each other (virtually).

Been a blast (pun intended). 😀
 
I dont have an answer for you spidey, but I know Im having problems with my home network. For a cable straight to a switch, should it matter if I use cat5 or cat5e? Im trying to transfer a ~3.5GB file from one machine to another (over ftp) and its going quite slowly (500k on 100mbit connection). Ive noticed some colisions because for some reason one of my machines isnt registered as full duplex even though the machine thinks it is. I just switched out the cable because I think the old cable was bad (slow transfers and it worked fine when I used a different cable before) and Ill be trying to switch ports on the switch in case it is that. Oh well, it should be done transfering in the next day or two 😛

ScottMac, hope ya get all better. 🙂
 


<< For a cable straight to a switch, should it matter if I use cat5 or cat5e? >>


No. 100 BaseT is specced to operate on cat5 or higher cable. Them's some pretty crappy rates ya got there noc. swap cables (NO HOMEMADE) and try again. if same symptoms then look elsewhere...driver, hard drive, NIC, processor, etc.
 


<<

<< For a cable straight to a switch, should it matter if I use cat5 or cat5e? >>


No. 100 BaseT is specced to operate on cat5 or higher cable. Them's some pretty crappy rates ya got there noc. swap cables (NO HOMEMADE) and try again. if same symptoms then look elsewhere...driver, hard drive, NIC, processor, etc. >>



After your post on making cables I decided Id never do that again 😉

Yeah, I just havent had the time to play around with it. So Ill be playing around as soon as I get the time. Ive gotten some great speeds before, just not working now.

EDIT: A jiggle here, a switch there, and a good ole reboot (had to, switching hardware :/) and everything is at full duplex except my router/firewall/"godly OpenBSD Dell POS". So Im happy for now.
 
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