Diego Mercado

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2018
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I recently decided i wanted to use the existing ethernet connections in my home to connect some devices (Laptop, PS4, etc.) with faster speed, but one look at the cabinet with all of the Cat5e and Coax cables and I was lost. I have an Xfinity Gateway (Arris TG1682G). All the rooms I want the ethernet to run to have ports for ethernet in them, but they currently are not working. Could someone please help explain how I need to set this up?

Pictures of cabinet and gateway: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/D4kth
 

razel

Platinum Member
May 14, 2002
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90
101
Looks like yellow is telephone and the blue ones at the bottom are what you want to connect to a switch or router. There's 9 of them. For testing I would plug your existing Arris TG1682G router with the 4 LAN ports and test the lines at the rooms. I would say to do a bandwidth test, copying a file from one computer to another. That is a true real world test of how good the LAN cables are for gigabit. I'm sure it can achive 100mb/s. The challenge I guess is finding out which coax it's already using so you can connect it at that box.

Scratch that... the last picture just loaded. If that blue LAN cable on the cable modem reaches back to that box then all you'll need to do is buy an 8 port switch, 8 thin, small Monoprice Ethernet cables. Connect 8 of those blue LAN ports to a switch. Make sure one of them is the blue one coming from your modem.
 

Diego Mercado

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2018
2
0
1
Scratch that... the last picture just loaded. If that blue LAN cable on the cable modem reaches back to that box then all you'll need to do is buy an 8 port switch, 8 thin, small Monoprice Ethernet cables. Connect 8 of those blue LAN ports to a switch. Make sure one of them is the blue one coming from your modem.
So what you’re saying is plug ethernet cables into the ports from the 4th picture and one from the cable modem into a switch and i’m good to go? Sweet!
 

razel

Platinum Member
May 14, 2002
2,337
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Yes... at the central box where all 9 blue LAN cables are, if one of those blue cables connects to your cable modem then you just need a switch in the box to tie everything together.... well everything except one. Switches for home are often 5 or 8. I'm sure you'll start with 8. 16 ports tend to be prosumer.

By the way... that must be a nice, large home. 9 Ethernet ports around the house? You really could be a candidate for MESH networking if WiFi signal coverage is an issue.
 

mv2devnull

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2010
1,495
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The Arris TG1682G claims to have four 1Gbps ports. The photo shows two cables, grey and blue, on them and two empty ports. Where do those two cables go to now?

If Arris has 4 ports, a 8-port switch has 8, and you join them with a patch cable, then you still have 10 free ports (3+7) to connect to the 9 blue cables that come from the rooms. If the two currently connected cables (blue and grey) have to stay connected, but you can leave one room disconnected, then a 8-port switch is still enough.