Getting the right color wire to the right pin in a connector can be confusing. Hold the connector with its clip facing down and with the cable opening facing you. The leftmost pin is pin #1, then pin #2, and so on.
Most CAT5 and CAT6 is wired using the EIA/TIA 568B standard. Regardless of whether you use 568A or 568B, straight-through cables connect the same pin numbers together on each end of the cable - pin #1 on one end goes to pin #1 on the other, pin #2 to pin #2, etc. Crossover cables swap the positions of the orange and green pairs on one connector so the transmit on one end goes to the receive on the other and vice versa - one connector is wired using 568A and the other uses 568B.
The chart below shows which color wire goes to which connector pin on each end of a cable.
Code:
EIA/TIA 568B STRAIGHT-THROUGH EIA/TIA 568B
1 Orange/White ------------------------------------ Orange/White 1
2 Orange ------------------------------------------------ Orange 2
3 Green/White -------------------------------------- Green/White 3
4 Blue ---------------------------------------------------- Blue 4
5 Blue/White ---------------------------------------- Blue/White 5
6 Green -------------------------------------------------- Green 6
7 Brown/White -------------------------------------- Brown/White 7
8 Brown -------------------------------------------------- Brown 8
EIA/TIA 568B CROSSOVER EIA/TIA 568A
1 Orange/White ----------------+ +---------------- Green/White 1
\ /
2 Orange ------------------+ \ +--------------------- Green 2
\ / \/
3 Green/White ---------------\-+ /+--------------- Orange/White 3
\ /
4 Blue ------------------------\/-------------------------- Blue 4
/\
5 Blue/White -----------------/--\------------------- Blue/White 5
/ \
6 Green --------------------+ +--------------------- Orange 6
7 Brown/White -------------------------------------- Brown/White 7
8 Brown -------------------------------------------------- Brown 8
Keep these things in mind to make your cabling more reliable:
* Keep the twists in the wires as close to the pins as possible to reduce noise and crosstalk.
* Be careful how tight a turn around corners the cable takes - no sharp bends and no kinks.
* Don't let people walk on the cable or put anything heavy on it. No pinching!
* Keep cable at least 3' away from electrical wires if they run parallel to each other.
* When bundling several cables together, it's better to use velcro instead of wire ties.
