[SOLVED] Connecting Att Modem to wired network

Mar 30, 2019
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I currently have internet service with At&t and interested in wiring an Ethernet connection into one of the rooms in the house (I will call this room1). I called At&t to ask how much it would cost to wiring just 1 line of Ethernet and it comes out to be ~&150.00. So I decide to do it myself.

Some background information. The house came pre-wired with Cat5e cables. All of these wires are bundle up in the attic. So, in each room, there is a Cat5e port. All of the jacks in the house are phone jacks, and the other ends in the attic are not terminated yet. Also, none of the ends in the attic is labeled, so I don't know which one ends up in which room.
Currently, the modem is sitting in the living right next to a phone jack. The only thing that it's connected to is the At&t fiber box outside the house.

So here are what I have done so far: 1) I changed out the phone plate and phone jack near the modem. I replaced it with an Ethernet keystone jack using a punch down tool and by following the TIA568B configuration. 2) I plug an Ethernet cable (Cat5e) from one of the Ethernet ports of the modem to the new Ethernet jack. 3) I went to the attic and terminate all of the Cat5e cables with rj45 connectors using TIA568B and a crimping tool. 4) I try to determine which cable is connected to the modem by plugging each of them into my laptop.

So far, none of the cable gives me an Ethernet signal. Before I went to the attic, I plugged an Ethernet from my laptop directly into the modem and was sure that it works. So where have I gone wrong? Why doesn't any of the cable giving me Ethernet signal when I plug it into my laptop?

Also, here is the rest of my plan, once I found which cable is from the living room (i.e., the cable that is plugged into the modem): 5) Connect the living room cable to the cable of room1 using an Ethernet keystone coupler. NOTE: I am aware that most situation would have used a switch to do this step, but since I only need one Ethernet connection (we only use 1 desktop computer in the house), I decide to use the coupler instead. Is this reasoning incorrect? 6) Change the phone jack in room1 to an Ethernet jack. DONE!

So, beside not understanding why I do not find any signal from any cable in the attic, is there anything wrong with the process that I proposed?

Sorry for so may words, this is my first time doing this, so I try to make sure I am not doing something wrong.
 
Solution
RJ45 couplers can be straight or crossover (reverses all pins 1-8, 2-7 etc), and for the light of me I don't remember which one you should be using to lengthen a cable. GOOGLE.

So ur 1st job is find out which cable goes where (where are the ends?) This makes easier by some RJ45 ports that have 2 tinny LED next to them, when a good physical connection is made, assuming one end of that cable is hooked up to something known-to-be-good, at least one of the LED should come up and stay solid. At last this way, you have found the other end of that cable.

Actual tcp/ip established, data transfer, proper port speed etc now step 2.
It should work but if you have not made a lot of cables it is really easy to get the ends crimped wrong. Then you have to hope that there is not a cable you missed that happens to be the one going to the modem.

There are of course cable locator/toner but I think the cheapest ones are about $30.
 
RJ45 couplers can be straight or crossover (reverses all pins 1-8, 2-7 etc), and for the light of me I don't remember which one you should be using to lengthen a cable. GOOGLE.

So ur 1st job is find out which cable goes where (where are the ends?) This makes easier by some RJ45 ports that have 2 tinny LED next to them, when a good physical connection is made, assuming one end of that cable is hooked up to something known-to-be-good, at least one of the LED should come up and stay solid. At last this way, you have found the other end of that cable.

Actual tcp/ip established, data transfer, proper port speed etc now step 2.
 
Solution