sharing a cat5 cable

[Guest_imported]

I've got a single computer in a room seperate from the hub.
I want to connect a second computer to the network in my room without running a second cable under the house. Can I alter the wiring so that I use all four pairs in the cable. Will this sacrifice speed? I'm running 100Mbit ethernet

Thanks

 

[wybnormal]

It is possible to either build or buy a "splitter" that makes a Y cable connection to a single RJ45 jack. I doubt you would see enough degradation in a home network. The splitters run about 20-25 dollars or if you have a crimper, you can try to make your own.

Mike S
"Diplomacy; the art of saying 'nice doggie' till you can find a rock" Wynn Catlin

 

[Guest_imported]

Two options to answer your question.

Option 1 - Use a second hub in your remote room. The two hubs can be connected directly using a crossover cable or, if one of the hubs has an "uplink port", with a straight through cable.

Option 2 - If you feel really mechanically inclined to do it this way (which is the wrong way), you can split the one cable into two. Ethernet uses pins 1 & 2 and 3 & 6. Therefore, you could split the cable in two. You would take say, org & org/wht on 1 & 2 and grn $ grn/wht on 3 & 6 for one cable. Then take blue & blue/wht on 1 & 3 and brn & brn/wht on 3 & 6 for the second cable. I've never tried this, but in theory it should work just fine. You may suffer from crosstalk, though.

Good luck.

 

[bluetongol]

joker02 is rigth! i've tried using a single cable to connect two computers without degrading the line..
just use the remaining pairs 4,5,7 and 8. crimp both ends and viola!

blue

 

[MasterRacker]

Splitting the wire can work, but you are remove any "future proofing" of your wire by doing so. The new technologies that are coming out beyond 100Mbit use all 4 pairs instead of just two to get the increase in speed. Also, as stated, in a house (short runs) it can work, but 100BT is depending on the unused pairs to "drain" some noise on longer runs.

The TIA "golden rule" is "one cable, one jack." 4 port hubs can be had very inexpensively and would be my recommendation. Jeff

I haven't lost my mind - I know it's backed up on tape somewhere ....

 

[cowboy405]

If going more than 17 to 20 ft at 100 mb crc errors, runt packets and collisions will degrade your performance when sharing pairs. At 100 mb, I'd get a cheap hub.

Dennis