Connect to DSL Modem from Patch Panel

[alystrup]

Greetings all,

I am quite inexperienced when it comes to networking (as I'm sure this post will indicate). My problem is simple, but it is difficult to describe in text. I will do my best.

The electrician who originally wired my house wired only for phones, but used Cat5e cable. As such, I have one cable that runs from my utility box on the outside of my house to my utility room in the basement. Here, the cable joins the rest of the house's cat5 cables. They were stripped, their white/blue and blue cables were joined with twist-on connectors, and the other cables ran to their respective face plates.

Here is what I want to do:
Since I never intend to have a landline, I want to convert all of this wiring to data only. I want to replace the RJ11 faceplates with RJ45s and connect the wires in the utility room to a patch panel.

My problem is this: I don't know which cable is the one from outside (the one that needs to stay a phone line to connect to the modem). I have no tools to test which cable goes to which part of the house.

Here is the solution I've worked out so far: I want to terminate all 7 cables (six rooms in the house, the 7th leads outside) onto the patch panel. I then want to crimp a cable that will be RJ45 on one side (allowing me to connect it to the patch panel) and RJ14 on the other (allowing me to connect it to the modem). Then I can go down the line and plug that cable into each slot until I identify which one is the exterior line.

I don't understanding the wiring standards well enough to know how I'll need to wire the patch cable to allow it to communicate with the patch panel and the modem correctly.

Is my reasoning sound? Does anyone have any suggestions? How can I make sure my RJ45 to RJ14 patch cable is wired correctly?

Thanks for your help and suggestions. I've used these forums as a valuable resource for years, but I've never submitted a question of my own until now.

Here is an attempt at diagramming what I want to do.

 

[reedo_43]

I think you know more than you do.

http://www.lanshack.com/make-cat5E.aspx

 

[DerekVGH]

You don't need to make a special patch cable. You can plug an RJ-14 cable into a Cat 5 or Cat 6 jack and it will work just fine. The connector is smaller but it will still lock in and make contact properly.

Here is what I would do. I would wire all 7 lines into your patch panel. Then, since you don't have a test meter, take a laptop and plug it into one of the jacks, then use a patch cord to connect one of the jacks on your patch panel to your router. If you get a link light then you've found the line your laptop is connected to. If not, then move it to the next jack on the patch panel, repeating until you get a link. Once you see the link light, go to your laptop and test the connection by viewing a web page. If it works then you have wired the jack correctly. Label it at each end, move the laptop to the next jack, and repeat.

When you are done, you'll have one line left over that will be your incoming modem line. Connect this to your modem with the RJ-14 cable.

An alternative way to find the modem line is to wire all the jacks on the patch panel, then connect a phone to each one until you get a dial tone.