Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations Rhinorhino on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Cat 5 Wiring issues...? Wha'd I do wrong? 1

Status
Not open for further replies.

outhere

IS-IT--Management
Joined
Jul 29, 2001
Messages
116
Location
CA
Hi!

Been working on setting up a WAN, within a LAN via a Linksys Etherfast DSL Router.
Installed the wall jacks as following (per instructions).

Cat 5 color-------wall jack color.
blue...............green
blue/white.........red
orange.............yellow
orange/white.......black
brown..............brown
green..............blue
brown/white........orange
green/white........white

connections have been checked and via my voltage meter that I used as a probe to make sure the other end of the Cat 5 wire in my "tek-room" were active.

I also crimped my own wires, (the other end of the wall jacks)that go into the router as follows...."twisted Straight-Through"

Pin 1- orange/white Pin 5- blue/white
Pin 2- Orange Pin 6- green
pin 3- Green/white Pin 7- brown/white
pin 4- Blue Pin 8- brown

Seeing this was my first time crimping I also made sure that they were snug and proper. Took me a few tries but I'm confident with them now.

Oh ya....my problem...almost forgot .)

When I plug them into the router I get no LED Link/Act activity or light what so ever. Cause...unknown...
Must be the wall jacks, perhaps I wired them wrong, I used the color scheme that the back of the wall plate package suggested.

Anyhow, I should also mention that the router works well, Im using it now, thing is its in the middle of the office floor connecting 4 pc's in a very unorthodox setting, straight from the Pc's ethernet card to the Router...All works but its an ugly situation let me assure you!

SO...any of your suggestions would help and if i left something out, (like this isn't long enough)please let me know!!

Have Yourselves a great New Years and thanks

Josh Maxwell
Discover Computers
CTO/MIS
discover_computers@hotmail.com
DirectLine-514.595.6024
 
I "drew" the little diagram above because You said:

"I also crimped my own wires, (the other end of the wall jacks)that go into the router ..."

I can't picture what you are doing. "draw" me a picture.

The bottom line is the signals need to "twist" between the pc and the hub like the following pic:

out1.gif


note how in the left "straight through" TX+ goes to RX+ but both are PIN 1 and so on. This is because the Hub "presents"
RX+ at pin 1 while the NIC/PC "presents" TX+ at pin 1. So while the normal straight through cable has identical ends a "twist" occurs with the signals. If you are doing something different that the diagram I drew in my previous post you are most likely "untwisting" the signals. The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.
 
Hi outhere,

Does your router has a hub/switch built-in?
If it does, I don't think you need a cross-
over. You need a cross-over when your are
connecting two pcs with no hub/switch or
connecting two hubs without a uplink port
(daisy-chaining hubs). The color does not
matter too much at ends of the wall socket
as long as you use the same convention on
both ends but using the universal convention
does you no harm as someone may take-over
your work. Clear your mind, you may be
making more 'twist' than necessary when going
along the wire route. I always leave the
wall-to-wall 'straight through' and make the
'twist' at the RJ45-RJ45 wires as they can
be manipluate anywhere instead of being on the
walls.

Good Luck
 
Just a note re the post from softlab...

I am not suggesting you use a crossover cable. You want to use straight through cables. Just be sure the "twist" of tx to rx happens at the right place - in/from the HUB.

The crossover diagram is just part of the jpg i linked.

Softlab is absolutly correct the wires &quot;in the walls&quot; from wallplate to wallplate don't matter as long as they are &quot;straight through&quot; pin1<>colorA<>pin1. The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.

 
Probably not the cause, but you did mention this was your first time crimping. When I started making wires, I wan't squeezing the crimping tools hard enough causing the cable to not work at all. Now I sqeeze the tool as hard as I can every time I put an end on.

There are also some tools you can buy that will test the wires and tell you what is wrong, but I'm not sure where to find them.
 
hey outhere did you get it to work??? If so what was the fix? Don't be afraid to share. :-)

Thanks for the star.


The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.

 
Thanks to all. Got it to work thanks to all your help. I had a slight suspicion that it might have been the wall jacks from the start. After I posted here, I took apart one of those wall jacks, followed the pins to the screw that the colored wires are connected to and made sure the continuity didn't stop (hard to explain but sure you get it by now.) Basically noticed that the wall jack pins and the cat5 pins were not in the same order.

By rewiring the wall jacks to cat5 straight through color code, the link was made between the NIC and the router!

Success!! Thanks to you'all!! Josh Maxwell
Discover Computers
CTO/MIS
discover_computers@hotmail.com
DirectLine-514.595.6024
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top