Update w/ Requested Pics: Yesterday morning, I made the coolest discovery in my new house

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: sandmanwake
The place I'm staying at is close to 200 years old. I tore down some walls and flooring and found absolutely zero wires. The original builders apparently used WIRELESS ethernet!!!!

LOL

LOL

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser
Woah! 110 years old CAT5. They can't be good.

pings <1ms from my office, down a drop to the patch panel in the basement, up another drop to my wirlesess bridge ... unless the wireless bridge is being tempermental... then its 4-40ms :thumbsdown:

 

[ballmode]

pics

 

[Jeff7]

Lucky you - this house is about 40 years old, but the phone wiring looks like something scrounged out of a scrapyard.

 

[episodic]

Awesome. . .

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Lucky you - this house is about 40 years old, but the phone wiring looks like something scrounged out of a scrapyard.

pics? How bad can it be? I gaurentee you I have more disgusting looking derelict wire in my house!

 

[Eeezee]

I have basic cat3 cabling for phone and whoever installed the cable jacks didn't even do it right. I was getting bizarre connection dropping, so I had a Cox tech come down and he took a look at the wall. It wasn't installed right at all, they didn't even use mounting screws, so the coax cable was literally holding the plate in place and this was causing the connection to be severely degraded. Internet has been working great ever since.

Just another story of bizarre home wiring, congrats to the OP

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: acemcmac

It splits the two unused pairs into a second jack. You put one of those on each end of the line when you're doing special projects...

What do you mean by special projects?

When they were running all that Cat5, did they update the electrical wiring in the house too? We have an 80 year old house and the electrical wiring is a little shady - and there's a huge lack of outlets. And switches - only 3 rooms in our house have lightswitches.

 

[j00fek]

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: acemcmac

It splits the two unused pairs into a second jack. You put one of those on each end of the line when you're doing special projects...

What do you mean by special projects?

When they were running all that Cat5, did they update the electrical wiring in the house too? We have an 80 year old house and the electrical wiring is a little shady - and there's a huge lack of outlets. And switches - only 3 rooms in our house have lightswitches.

Electrical system is brand new too. Tons of electical outlets everywhere. I used more power strips in my old apartment than I am in my entire new house at the moment.

Strangley enough, I have about 5 or 6 light switches that appear to not be hooked to anything They don't control the overhead lighting, nor do they control any electical outlets... very very strange...

With regards to special projects, can't you think of any times when you'd want to have more than one drop from your office to your patch panel? Since I don't have v-lan's, two little adapters like this would be infinitley useful in keeping expensive routers and firewalls out of the humid basement until the past possible minute by allowing the "wan side" of the network and the "lan side" of the network to go up and down the same drop.

 

[RGN]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
cat 5 was originally used for telephone wire. it was used for things like ethernet because it was available and 'there'.

No. The TIA/EIA standard for cat. 5 was ratified in 1991. 10-base ethernet was in use before then. You might be thinking of cat. 3

Wikipedia Cat. 5
Wikipedia TIA/EIA 568A
Wikipedia TIA/EIA 568B

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
cat 5 was originally used for telephone wire. it was used for things like ethernet because it was available and 'there'.

You're full of crap.

Correction:
cat 3 was originally used for 10mb ethernet. it was used for things like phones because it was available and 'there'.

 

[harobikes333]

Originally posted by: Schadenfreude
<--- No idea what CAT5 is specifically, but get the gist

:thumbsup:

ditto

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
cat 5 was originally used for telephone wire. it was used for things like ethernet because it was available and 'there'.

You're full of crap.

Correction:
cat 3 was originally used for 10mb ethernet. it was used for things like phones because it was available and 'there'.

I strongly suspected the same, but did not want to be the one to do the callout

 

[JS80]

i was hoping you found pirate's booty

 

[sygyzy]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
i suppose you can carry a phone signal on Cat5. great for networking!

Quote of the day!

 

[ViviTheMage]

thats pretty interesting.

 

[Metron]

Originally posted by: acemcmac
Strangley enough, I have about 5 or 6 light switches that appear to not be hooked to anything They don't control the overhead lighting, nor do they control any electical outlets... very very strange...

They are connected to various neighbor's garage doors.

 

[acemcmac]

bump with promised pics

 

[thelanx]

Why is your wireless bridge stuck against the window? Are you stealing Wifi from your neighbor?

 

[sswingle]

Love your "patch panel"

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: ScottSwingleComputers
Love your "patch panel"

Only needed six jacks beacuse I only had six drops. I'm just using a crossover cable in there for now while I get everything else set up... Do you think one of those $100, 16 port panels would have been a better deal?

 

[chuckywang]

What is a "drop"?

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: chuckywang
What is a "drop"?

A run from the central point to an end user point. There are two ethernet "drops" in the living room, one in the office, one in the room that has the wireless bridge (spare bedroom), one in the lounge and one in the master bedroom. They're called "drops" because in offices, they drop out of raised ceilings.

 

[RelaxTheMind]

Originally posted by: acemcmac

Originally posted by: ScottSwingleComputers
Love your "patch panel"

Only needed six jacks beacuse I only had six drops. I'm just using a crossover cable in there for now while I get everything else set up... Do you think one of those $100, 16 port panels would have been a better deal?

Ive seen some decent ones that they rip from old companies being sold on ebay for dirt cheap...