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Wired network from 2nd floor to basement

L

lykaon78

Golden Member
I am finishing my basement and need some advice.

My cable modem and router are on the second floor and I get little to no wireless signal in the basement. I'd like to hardwire a connection to the basement so I can just add another wireless router.

Has anyone tried dropping an ethernet cord from the second floor of their house to the basement? Out the window is out of the question.

Any other possibilities?

Thanks,
Lykaon78
 
You will have no issues doing that other than fishing the wire.
Do no kink it. CAT 5 or CAT6 is good for about 100 meters
 
Is your furnace in the basement? If so, locate the return air duct and run some 1 1/2 or 2" conduit along side the duct work. I used PVC and glued 12' sections together as I went. It was easier to push the conduit down from the 2nd floor to the basement for some reason. Once the conduit is in place, just feed the cable down to the basement. That's what I did. I did this about 10 years ago and have had no problems so far. As the matter of fact, I was just thinking about replacing the old cat5 with some newer cat6. If you have more questions feel free to PM me.

c3p0
:beer:
 
Follow-up:

Any possibility of just using the existing coaxial wiring to transmit a signal to my basement?

Basically every bedroom in my house is wired for cable with standard coax inputs - they all meet at main box where the cable comes in from the street. I'll be wiring cable in my basement to this box so could I figure a way to use that "network"?

I have my wireless router and cable modem using one in an empty room - I was initially going to wire cat-5 from my router to the basement but if there is an alternative I'm open to that.
 
Using the coax is an expensive proposition, You will need some media converters and such and will get 10mbit connection (from what i understand)
You are better off running the cable. If you are scared of doing this yourself check out craigslist or something similar to get someone else to do the labor for you.
 
I used this link to setup a powerline network. I plugged in one to my router upstairs and the other to a 8 port switch in the basement. I have several machines in the basement and didn't want to deal with multiple wireless adapters. Plus the speed is great. Upstairs I get 13Mb download speed, the basement gets 12Mb.
 
Originally posted by: jt63
I used this link to setup a powerline network. I plugged in one to my router upstairs and the other to a 8 port switch in the basement. I have several machines in the basement and didn't want to deal with multiple wireless adapters. Plus the speed is great. Upstairs I get 13Mb download speed, the basement gets 12Mb.
Click to expand...

This looks like your best option if you don't want to run a cable.
 
I used that option for my Friends Mother. Her FiOS connection (5/2) came in one side of the house and her computer/office was about as far away as possible. The provided Verizon G router constantly dropped and had a weak connection. I used a set of Ethernet over Powerline adaptors and she hasn't had a single problem. She's extremely happy with it.
 
Update: I decided to run it outside of the house. There is a gutter down that side of the exterior wall so I should be able to easily hide it behind/next to that.

Will the cold temperatures degrade the connection?

BTW: I'm told that running wires through cold air returns is a major fire hazard and definitely a code violation in my town. Apparently, wires through the cold air return act like a wick and allow the fire to travel faster from floor to floor.

Thanks for the link to the powerline network. That will be my plan B.



 
Cold air shouldn't degrade signal. The real problem is that you will be exposing it to the elements. Most ethernet cabling isn't designed for that kind of abuse. So, if you do run it outside, make sure to get something that can stand up to the elements.
 
You should have ran it through some conduit if you ran it outside. Make sure you used plenum cable as well.
 
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