[SOLVED] Networking help

[ErinXC]

Hey Guys,
I'm having some difficulty... To start I was originally just trying to "activate" already pre-installed Ethernet ports in my other rooms to provide a hard wired connection to my devices. I read this post: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/how-to-activate-ethernet-ports-in-the-wall.2276357/
Which was incredibly helpful, but once I found my bundle of wires in my house I became extremely concerned and pissed off.
Basically, I have an idea of what needs to done, but would appreciate a point in the right direction... Or a push to throw in the white flag and hire someone.
Below are the images, of the mess I have to fix. Most of the wires are labeled (barely) so I know which cable belongs to which room (sorta), but where the heck do I go from here?
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3

Thank you for your help!

 

[USAFRet]

I commiserate with your pissedoffness

Whoever did that stuff in the 3rd image needs to be taken outside and beaten with a bag of hammers.

 

[SamirD]

Ah yes, another 'electrician' who thinks they know how to wire ethernet when they barely know how to wire phone. I concur with the pissed off ness and the beating with a bag of hammers.

So the good thing is at least the wire is good. And if you paid a contractor for ethernet to be wired, then you should be able to go back to them and get them to do it correctly if it was in writing. You may have to file a lawsuit to get this to happen though...

But if you want get things done faster and maybe easier, you can probably buy the tools you need to terminate everything properly yourself. And we can help guide you in that journey as many of us had to deal with it ourselves.

 

[gggplaya]

I don't see anything wrong here? The circular connector/wire is just cable coax for TV splitter or Internet modem, the OP can leave that alone. The electrician seemed to just tie everything up with wire nuts to keep everything out of the way. They normally just run the wiring through the walls and cap it off because that's the hard part of the job. That's normally all the builder asks them to do. Then the IT vendor wires it to a patch panel, switch, modem, router etc.... Clearly the IT portion of the job was never contracted out.

What the OP has to do is super easy:
1. Just buy a patch panel, either rack mount or surface mount and buy a punch down tool. Could be done in 30 minutes.

2. Then buy a network switch and a bunch of short ethernet cables. Connect all the wired ports of the patch panel to the ethernet switch.

3. Connect an ethernet port from the router to the closest ethernet wall outlet. Voila, now all your ethernet wall outlets are active.

 

[ErinXC]

Ok, so I purchased a patch panel, switch, punch down tool and some short Ethernet cables. Whenever everything comes in I will work on it and get back to this post. I appreciate all the help hopefully I don't need anymore assistance. But I will keep you all updated!

 

[gggplaya]

1 thing I totally forgot to ask/mention.

On the other ends of the wire, where the electrican already installed ethernet ports, you'll need to match the wiring standard they used, it's either A or B. You will need take off the cover to one of the outlets and look at it to see how they wired it. You have to use the same standard on both ends of the wire.

If they used punchdown connectors, they are generally well labeled for A or B.

 

[SamirD]

1 thing I totally forgot to ask/mention.

On the other ends of the wire, where the electrican already installed ethernet ports, you'll need to match the wiring standard they used, it's either A or B. You will need take off the cover to one of the outlets and look at it to see how they wired it. You have to use the same standard on both ends of the wire.

If they used punchdown connectors, they are generally well labeled for A or B.

You actually don't need to worry about this unless they used something other than tia 568a or 568b. A cable with A on one end and B on the other is just a crossover cable and won't be an issue since all switches are now auto mdix.
https://www.utm.edu/staff/leeb/568/568.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-dependent_interface#Auto_MDI-X