What causes a switch to run slow?

[mnewsham]

Do you have MoCA and if so. Can you confirm that speeds can go up to 1gbps

Not in my current setup, but previously yes, though un-bonded MoCA 2.0, I was getting 400-450mbps throughput.

And I have seen a friend of mine get upwards of 800mbps with bonded MoCA 2.0. He uses it for his gigabit WAN from the ONT to his router, but with bonded MoCA 2.0 adapters at each end to switch it from Ethernet (at the ONT and router) to coax for the house run between the two locations, and it's a straight run with no splitters or anything else to degrade the signal.

 

[SamirD]

I have moca and have confirmed 930Mbps using iperf in a test. It's fantastic.

I'm not sure about what you mean when you say 'splicing kit'--there is no splicing ethernet wires. Good that you've got plenty of wire in each phone jack location, and that jack right next to the router is your best friend. I'm not sure what you mean by a monoprice wall plate pass through--can you share a link?

I think this is your best bet for ethernet since you already have proper wiring in the walls.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I have moca and have confirmed 930Mbps using iperf in a test. It's fantastic.

I'm not sure about what you mean when you say 'splicing kit'--there is no splicing ethernet wires. Good that you've got plenty of wire in each phone jack location, and that jack right next to the router is your best friend. I'm not sure what you mean by a monoprice wall plate pass through--can you share a link?

I think this is your best bet for ethernet since you already have proper wiring in the walls.

The wiring is Cat5 but the phone jack is not an Ethernet port. I think the phone jack uses 5 wires and Ethernet uses 7 wires. If you look at an Ethernet cable at the connector part. You can see there are 8 wires in the clear connector tip of the ethernet jack. A phone jack connector has 5 wires. That means there are wires that are not connected. The wall plates are for phone jacks. I have to switch them out to ethernet port wall plates connecting all the appropriate wires to an ethernet plug and ethernet jack using a crimping tool.

 

[SamirD]

The wiring is Cat5 but the phone jack is not an Ethernet port. I think the phone jack uses 5 wires and Ethernet uses 7 wires. If you look at an Ethernet cable at the connector part. You can see there are 8 wires in the clear connector tip of the ethernet jack. A phone jack connector has 5 wires. That means there are wires that are not connected. The wall plates are for phone jacks. I have to switch them out to ethernet port wall plates connecting all the appropriate wires to an ethernet plug and ethernet jack using a crimping tool.

Phone only uses 2 per line, 4 wires max while ethernet uses 8. The easiest thing would be to punch down each cable to an ethernet keystone and then use a keystone wall plate like the following:

The good thing is that you can probably find these local at a hardware store like home depot/lowes.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Phone only uses 2 per line, 4 wires max while ethernet uses 8. The easiest thing would be to punch down each cable to an ethernet keystone and then use a keystone wall plate like the following:

The good thing is that you can probably find these local at a hardware store like home depot/lowes.

If I switch out every telephone jack with an RJ45 plate and a keystone cat5 punch down. Would I need to terminate any of my jacks or would all the data flow free from the jack next to my switch upstairs.

 

[SamirD]

If I switch out every telephone jack with an RJ45 plate and a keystone cat5 punch down. Would I need to terminate any of my jacks or would all the data flow free from the jack next to my switch upstairs.

So think of it this way--each newly created ethernet port will be connected to another port in another room--like having an ethernet cable between those two rooms.

So while your router would have a port next to it, the other end of it may end up in another room--which you could connect to the other ethernet port in that room with a short ethernet cable and now your router connects to wherever room that other port connected to. Using this methodology, you could get ethernet to the basement, but I'm not exactly sure what route it would take.

I'm going to try to draw it out to explain it better

In the easiest scenario it would be:
Router -- Ethernet port near it -- basement jack

But more than likely it will be something like this:
Router -- Ethernet port near it -- some room jack 1 -- some room jack 2 -- some room jack 3 -- some room jack 4 -- basement jack

 

[Hans Gruber]

So think of it this way--each newly created ethernet port will be connected to another port in another room--like having an ethernet cable between those two rooms.

So while your router would have a port next to it, the other end of it may end up in another room--which you could connect to the other ethernet port in that room with a short ethernet cable and now your router connects to wherever room that other port connected to. Using this methodology, you could get ethernet to the basement, but I'm not exactly sure what route it would take.

I'm going to try to draw it out to explain it better

In the easiest scenario it would be:
Router -- Ethernet port near it -- basement jack

But more than likely it will be something like this:
Router -- Ethernet port near it -- some room jack 1 -- some room jack 2 -- some room jack 3 -- some room jack 4 -- basement jack

What makes even less sense is the builder didn't create a box for all the Ethernet connections to terminate to. I guess you could say the phone box outside is the final point. Is there any Cat 5 tester that sends electronic signals in the walls for me to find where it all ends up? On my end I simply have a Cat5 cable. Some say it will only do 100mbps because it's literally Cat5. Built in 1998, Cat5e didn't exist until 2001.

 

[mnewsham]

What makes even less sense is the builder didn't create a box for all the Ethernet connections to terminate to. I guess you could say the phone box outside is the final point. Is there any Cat 5 tester that sends electronic signals in the walls for me to find where it all ends up? On my end I simply have a Cat5 cable. Some say it will only do 100mbps because it's literally Cat5. Built in 1998, Cat5e didn't exist until 2001.

Amazon.com: Extech 40180 Tone Generator and Amplifier Probe Circuit Finder Kit: Home Improvement

Buy Extech 40180 Tone Generator and Amplifier Probe Circuit Finder Kit: Circuit Tracers & Analyzers - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

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Might be a bit higher-end than you need though

 

[SamirD]

What makes even less sense is the builder didn't create a box for all the Ethernet connections to terminate to. I guess you could say the phone box outside is the final point. Is there any Cat 5 tester that sends electronic signals in the walls for me to find where it all ends up? On my end I simply have a Cat5 cable. Some say it will only do 100mbps because it's literally Cat5. Built in 1998, Cat5e didn't exist until 2001.

Well that's because that was a 'phone tech' that says he can install cat5 because that's what builders asked back then. That is how phone was installed back in the day as home runs were expensive and so were punchdown blocks. Home run network wiring back then wasn't even understood as a concept in residential construction.

You can use a cable toning tool (mine was about $100) to figure out where everything ends up, and now that I think about it, a toning tool would be quite useful as one of the jacks on one of the outlets will end up going to the phone company, which you don't want connected to your ethernet network and vice-versa. So I would get a toning tool like either of these (the fluke one is the one I think I have):

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Fluke-Networks-Analog-Tone-and-Probe/3438412?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-rpe-_-google-_-lia-_-106-_-electricaltoolsandtesters-_-3438412-_-0&store_code=1799&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpOi-n7y_5AIVgo7ICh3FqQF_EAkYAyABEgKjKvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Noyafa RJ45 RJ11 Toner Tracker

The Noyafa NF-811 is a cost friendly wire tracker consisting of a transmitter and a receiver. It can be used to trace network cables, telephone cables, and it identifies cable's continuity quality. It's an ideal network tool for techs who work frequently with communication and integrated wiring.

www.techtoolsupply.com

You will need the alligator clips as you will not be plugging in a cable every time. The first thing you would need to do is go to every phone jack and open it up and separate the wires if they have been 'daisy chained' together. Ie, if two different sets of wires have been connected to the same jack or each other. Once you have done that then you can start by connecting alligator clips from the tone generator to one of the cables from the jack by your router. This will send a tone down that wire. Using the detector, you will go to each room and listen for tones on each wire. It will only sound on one of them. Once you find this you can punch down a jack on both the wire you found as well as the one by your router. If you do this right, you should be able to now connect the new jack by the router and then connect a laptop or switch to the new jack in the room and get ethernet. This is essentially the core of the process to re-wire all the jacks in your house.

I wouldn't worry about the limits of cat5. My parents house was built in 1995 before cat5e was even a standard and wireless didn't exist yet. We had wire ran for 2 ethernet jacks in each room with the best 400Mhz wire we could find. Today, almost 25 years later, almost all the jacks can run gigabit without a problem. Some of the terminations were not done right as was par for the course back in that day since no one in residential construction understood what networking wiring was, so those jacks only pass 100Mbps, but I know if I re-terminate them they should work on gigabit. And the good thing is that if they work on gigabit, they are also going to be good for 2.5Gb. Now that I understand the timeframe of the construction, it makes perfect sense to see the phone wiring daisy chaining.

 

[SamirD]

Amazon.com: Extech 40180 Tone Generator and Amplifier Probe Circuit Finder Kit: Home Improvement

Buy Extech 40180 Tone Generator and Amplifier Probe Circuit Finder Kit: Circuit Tracers & Analyzers - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

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Might be a bit higher-end than you need though

Nice unit but for that much I'd rather have a Fluke branded one.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Here is what I found.
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15961

 

[Hans Gruber]

Well that's because that was a 'phone tech' that says he can install cat5 because that's what builders asked back then. That is how phone was installed back in the day as home runs were expensive and so were punchdown blocks. Home run network wiring back then wasn't even understood as a concept in residential construction.

You can use a cable toning tool (mine was about $100) to figure out where everything ends up, and now that I think about it, a toning tool would be quite useful as one of the jacks on one of the outlets will end up going to the phone company, which you don't want connected to your ethernet network and vice-versa. So I would get a toning tool like either of these (the fluke one is the one I think I have):

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Fluke-Networks-Analog-Tone-and-Probe/3438412?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-rpe-_-google-_-lia-_-106-_-electricaltoolsandtesters-_-3438412-_-0&store_code=1799&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpOi-n7y_5AIVgo7ICh3FqQF_EAkYAyABEgKjKvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Noyafa RJ45 RJ11 Toner Tracker

The Noyafa NF-811 is a cost friendly wire tracker consisting of a transmitter and a receiver. It can be used to trace network cables, telephone cables, and it identifies cable's continuity quality. It's an ideal network tool for techs who work frequently with communication and integrated wiring.

www.techtoolsupply.com

You will need the alligator clips as you will not be plugging in a cable every time. The first thing you would need to do is go to every phone jack and open it up and separate the wires if they have been 'daisy chained' together. Ie, if two different sets of wires have been connected to the same jack or each other. Once you have done that then you can start by connecting alligator clips from the tone generator to one of the cables from the jack by your router. This will send a tone down that wire. Using the detector, you will go to each room and listen for tones on each wire. It will only sound on one of them. Once you find this you can punch down a jack on both the wire you found as well as the one by your router. If you do this right, you should be able to now connect the new jack by the router and then connect a laptop or switch to the new jack in the room and get ethernet. This is essentially the core of the process to re-wire all the jacks in your house.

I wouldn't worry about the limits of cat5. My parents house was built in 1995 before cat5e was even a standard and wireless didn't exist yet. We had wire ran for 2 ethernet jacks in each room with the best 400Mhz wire we could find. Today, almost 25 years later, almost all the jacks can run gigabit without a problem. Some of the terminations were not done right as was par for the course back in that day since no one in residential construction understood what networking wiring was, so those jacks only pass 100Mbps, but I know if I re-terminate them they should work on gigabit. And the good thing is that if they work on gigabit, they are also going to be good for 2.5Gb. Now that I understand the timeframe of the construction, it makes perfect sense to see the phone wiring daisy chaining.

You really know your stuff. I have been here since it was being built in the stud stage. They wired the entire house for inwall speakers and screwed all that up. Fortunately the builder fixed all of that. The Cat 5 was for future proofing everything but with no home run or network closet. They insisted they knew what they were doing at the time.

This seems like a big project because I know the wiring is a tangled mess and the odds of getting a straight line two floors up seem improbable at best.

 

[SamirD]

Here is what I found.
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15961

That should do the job, but if you're going to spend that much, I'd spend the little extra to get the Fluke.

 

[SamirD]

You really know your stuff. I have been here since it was being built in the stud stage. They wired the entire house for inwall speakers and screwed all that up. Fortunately the builder fixed all of that. The Cat 5 was for future proofing everything but with no home run or network closet. They insisted they knew what they were doing at the time.

This seems like a big project because I know the wiring is a tangled mess and the odds of getting a straight line two floors up seem improbable at best.

Yeah, I feel your pain. I kept butting heads with the same type of contractors on my parents house who messed up all the in ceiling speakers and didn't even know how to terminate the twisted pair wiring or even where to put a demarc. Luckily they pretty much admitted they didn't know what they were doing so I told them precisely what to do and not do until I went to school and let my parents finish the project--which didn't go so well.

It's actually quite easy as you won't have to mess with the wiring at all--just the ends. And once you have them re-terminated, you'll basically have built-in ethernet cables between all the rooms, which will be a big step up from where you are now.

 

[SamirD]

I forgot to post this video on how to use the toning tool:

Instead of plugging in the tone generator, you'll attach the alligator clips to the wires you're trying to trace. (If you plug it in before you separate the cables you'll find the tone at each of the telephone jacks since they're all connected.)

And instead of going to a wiring closet to find the wire, you'll be checking each of the wires in the phone jacks in each room.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is there any Cat 5 tester that sends electronic signals in the walls for me to find where it all ends up?

Yeah, look up cable tester / toner with remote.

 

[SamirD]

Is there any Cat 5 tester that sends electronic signals in the walls for me to find where it all ends up?

You can use the toner tool to do this, but it will end up at where the phone lines enter the house.

 

[SamirD]

And if you ignore where it talks about DMX512 in this diagram, you can see the difference between home runs and the daisy-chaining you have: