Need help figuring out if my home's CAT5 wiring was done incorrectly!

[buckybadger98]

My condo is wired for CAT5 wiring. There are 5 rooms with RJ45 jacks prewired. I'm confused because each room jack has 2 CAT5 wires running into the workbox, but only one connected to the RJ45 jack. The keystone on the jacks indicate each jack is wired 568B.

There are only 6 wires coming into the central wire hub in closet. I installed plugs on each wire and wired the plugs for 568B. I have a patch cable running from my cable modem to one the RJ45 jacks, but there is no activity on the switch in the closet to which all 6 wires are installed.

Any clue why these jacks appear to be dead? Does it have anything to do with there being 2 wires coming into each workbox, but only one wire hooked up to the jack?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sounds like these may actually be wired for phones and not ethernet. Would need to see pics.

 

[buckybadger98]

What type of pics would you need? Do you them of the punch down panel for the jacks?

 

[Scarpozzi]

That's how it should be wired going into an RJ45.

 

[kevnich2]

Take a few pics of both the in wall wire going to the keystone jacks in the wall, a few of the keystone jacks itself with the individual wire pairs and also any pics of the closet where the wiring comes back to the central location.

 

[Muadib]

Sounds like these may actually be wired for phones and not ethernet. Would need to see pics.

Clearly this...

 

[azazel1024]

So...uh...lets just say the stupid question here. When you say no activty on the switch on all 6 wires...you have something plugged in to the keystone jacks at the outlets...right? Not simply wired from the jacks back to the switch? Because...you know, you need a device actually plugged in for there to be activity. Otherwise it is just 8 open circuit wires and the switch sees nothing.

Just checking. I see you mention the cable modem, but have you actively tried each jack?

Also, try wiring the jacks to the other cat cable entering the box. Possible that the jacks are wired back to phone and the wires going back to your panel are the networking wires that are not terminated to a jack in the outlet.

 

[seepy83]

Also, try wiring the jacks to the other cat cable entering the box. Possible that the jacks are wired back to phone and the wires going back to your panel are the networking wires that are not terminated to a jack in the outlet.

Those were also my thoughts. Since you had to terminate the ends in your wiring closet, I'm thinking they were never terminated at each location, and what was already terminated throughout your home was just for phone. If you can borrow a Toner from someone (or want to spend the $70-100 it might cost you), you should be able to trace out the wires pretty quickly.