Cat5e cable for internet

[Tonyreigns]

Hey there everyone,

So for the past while I've been using powerline adapters around the house for internet, and I was about to call an electrician to come over and wire the house with Ethernet cables until I found a single cat5e port behind my TV. First time I've seen this port since I moved in 7 years ago.

It wasn't working so I opened up the wall panel and realized that only the blue and white-blue cables were connected from the cat5 cable. It was hooked up to a RJ45 CAT5E Tool-Less Keystone Module. I tried hooking up in both 568a and 568b configurations but my computer still didn't detect anything.

After trying to find the wires in the basement where all the wires in the house originate from(where the router and modem are), I found two blue cat5 cables which went through a little box that led to a second box where a phone line comes out of. I believe I wired the cables correctly with the keystone since it was pretty simple so is there anything I should do in the basement where the cat5 cable leads to? Or should I just call over an electrician.

Pictures wouldn't show so here are the two boxes in question:
http://imgur.com/9FdYSQo
http://imgur.com/ZyxvII0


Rather just check here to see if anyone has any suggestions before dropping some money.

Thanks

 

[mcnumpty23]

sorry finding it hard to picture your lay out

but all i did

cable from my router to the box i put on the wall

cat6 cable/though 5e would have done to the room i wanted

into another box on the wall

ethernet cable to the pc

was really straight forward certainly didnt need an electrician--though like i said cant visualise your lay out

edited--my boxes dont look any thing like those though

 

[Tonyreigns]

I figured it was a reach trying to explain this online. I wanted to wire everything myself but don't really have any tools and already have the cat5e wired. Just don't really want to mess around with those two boxes without knowing what's supposed to be done.

Just seems like the previous owner converted the cat5e cable to a phone line cable in the basement for some reason.

Either way, thanks anyways

 

[Solandri]

Your first picture looks like a telephone junction box. Each telephone line needs 2 wires (one pair), and a home normally comes with 2 phone lines. So 4 wires in total. The four screws let you connect one wire to each pin in the 4-pin keystone.

Your second pic looks like a two-line telephone cable split into two jacks. Ethernet is point-to-point so will only have one wire going to one pin. Phone lines can have multiple jacks connected to the same wire, so can have multiple pins (on different jacks) going to the same wire.

Normal phone jack (RJ11) is 4 pins (inner two are line 1, outer 2 are line 2, which is why the wiring sequence for ethernet has that funny split for the middle 4 conductors - they make the jack compatible with both ethernet and phone). Some digital phones require 6 pins (RJ25). RJ45, RJ25, and RJ11 are designed to be compatible. You can stick a RJ11 (4 pin) plug into an RJ25 or RJ45 socket. And you can stick an RJ25 plug into an RJ45 socket. So if someone didn't have enough RJ25 or RJ11 keystones, they could have used RJ45 keystones in a pinch.

The fact that only the blue and white wires were connected supports this. 1 pair = phone. Minimum to get ethernet working = 2 pairs.

How did you conclude it's Cat 5e cable? If it is, you can still use it as network cable. Just disconnected it from the phone wires, cut it off the existing keystones and wire it correctly using all 4 pairs. But if it's Cat 3 (phone cable), in all likelihood you're not going to be able to get it to work with ethernet unless we're talking about a very short run (say less than 20 feet, and maybe not even that far if there's a lot of electrical noise). You could tie some Cat 5e or Cat 6 to the Cat 3, and use the Cat 3 to pull it through the walls.

 

[ko888]

Those are RJ-12 jacks for landline telephone use:

 

[Tonyreigns]

I see, that's pretty informative thanks. And I know it's a cat5e because when I found the wires in the basement, they had cat5 written on both blue wires.

I believe when this house was built, everything was just Cat 3 but the previous owners must have installed the cat5 to get a single ethernet run in my living room. And about your last suggestion, that's something I tried doing a few months ago but I wasn't able to remove the metal box from the wall and didn't want a big hole in the wall. Might just give that a try again if I can't get this working.

Edit:
Yeah, I ended up trying to rewire the cat5 cable in the keystone with 568A and 568B configurations but nothing worked so I assumed something was wrong with the setup in the basement

 

[Martell1977]

You have 2 Cat 5 cables, do they both go to the same place? If not, you need to find were the other one goes and find out which is which. Telecom techs use a tone and probe to do this.

One thing you could do (it's not perfect but should get you running) is undo the basement connection and wire it to a RJ45 jack. Then run a ethernet cable from that jack to the router. You can do this for both if you can find a double port RJ45 jack. Just make sure to wire both ends of the run the same.

You will need to connect all 4 pairs for this.

 

[Solandri]

Edit:
Yeah, I ended up trying to rewire the cat5 cable in the keystone with 568A and 568B configurations but nothing worked so I assumed something was wrong with the setup in the basement

I'd do a conductivity test from room to the basement. Make sure none of the wires in the Cat 5e cable are broken. If you have broken wires and can't pull new cable through, you can do 100 Mbps ethernet (12.5 MB/s max) using just two pairs. Pins 1, 2, 3, and 6 on this chart.

http://nst.sourceforge.net/nst/docs/user/ch12.html

If you don't have a cable tester, even a cheap one will save you a lot of aggravation.

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-sfg-Network-Tester-Telephone/dp/B00G55ZGZ8

 

[Tonyreigns]

Edit:
Yeah, I ended up trying to rewire the cat5 cable in the keystone with 568A and 568B configurations but nothing worked so I assumed something was wrong with the setup in the basement

I'd do a conductivity test from room to the basement. Make sure none of the wires in the Cat 5e cable are broken. If you have broken wires and can't pull new cable through, you can do 100 Mbps ethernet (12.5 MB/s max) using just two pairs. Pins 1, 2, 3, and 6 on this chart.

http://nst.sourceforge.net/nst/docs/user/ch12.html

If you don't have a cable tester, even a cheap one will save you a lot of aggravation.

https://www.amazon.com/Generic-sfg-Network-Tester-Telephone/dp/B00G55ZGZ8

Alright thanks I'll give that a try. Friend of mine might have a cable tester. Also for the colour configuration. The keystone I have has a colour scheme on it. Should I be following that scheme or what you linked? I've already tried White-orange, orange, white-green, blue, white-blue,green, white-brown, and brown along with these two configurations: http://i.imgur.com/eU03a4M.png

It'd be nice to not switch through all 3 to check if it's working or not 😛

 

[Tonyreigns]

You have 2 Cat 5 cables, do they both go to the same place? If not, you need to find were the other one goes and find out which is which. Telecom techs use a tone and probe to do this.

One thing you could do (it's not perfect but should get you running) is undo the basement connection and wire it to a RJ45 jack. Then run a ethernet cable from that jack to the router. You can do this for both if you can find a double port RJ45 jack. Just make sure to wire both ends of the run the same.

You will need to connect all 4 pairs for this.

The wires don't go tothe same place, I've been trying to find the second cat5 for the past hour. Didn't even know the one wire was here for 7 years 😛.

And that was my next step. Was going to see if connecting a wire to a RJ45 jack would work. I'll see if I can find the second Cat5 first.
Thanks

 

[Solandri]

Computers can't see the colors on the wires. The colors are there only to assist people. You can use any color scheme you want (as long as you keep the color and color/white pairs matched). The standardized color schemes are just so people can add/modify an existing network without having to refer to the existing wiring.

So if you've got broken wires, then use whatever color scheme you want. One color pair on pins 1, 2. Another color pair on pins 3, 6. If all the wires are good, then try to stick with a standard color scheme. But you don't really have to - you only need to make sure both ends of the cable are wired the same.

 

[Tonyreigns]

Computers can't see the colors on the wires. The colors are there only to assist people. You can use any color scheme you want (as long as you keep the color and color/white pairs matched). The standardized color schemes are just so people can add/modify an existing network without having to refer to the existing wiring.

So if you've got broken wires, then use whatever color scheme you want. One color pair on pins 1, 2. Another color pair on pins 3, 6. If all the wires are good, then try to stick with a standard color scheme. But you don't really have to - you only need to make sure both ends of the cable are wired the same.

Gotcha. I'll give that a try and if it doesn't work I'll try everything else previously suggested by you and others.

Thanks a lot

 

[mcnumpty23]

Computers can't see the colors on the wires. The colors are there only to assist people. You can use any color scheme you want (as long as you keep the color and color/white pairs matched). The standardized color schemes are just so people can add/modify an existing network without having to refer to the existing wiring.

So if you've got broken wires, then use whatever color scheme you want. One color pair on pins 1, 2. Another color pair on pins 3, 6. If all the wires are good, then try to stick with a standard color scheme. But you don't really have to - you only need to make sure both ends of the cable are wired the same.

yeah thats what i did just made sure both ends used same colours to same position pins