[SOLVED] Well, that'll teach me - Cheap Cat6 that can't do 1G at 35m

So I mentioned in another thread, that 100m of “Cat6 UTP PVC Solid Cable” I bought a while back, can’t do 1G, only .1G :frowning:

In fairness, it was £35 / $50 including TAX and Shipping

Luckily it was only stuff I bought to see me through, but now I’m doing a proper job of things, I bought some of this. It’s way more than I need, but I do have some friends/family that have recently asked for a few cable runs. It’ll be run in the house briefly, and then in underground conduit:

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Perhaps the other stuff was copper-clad aluminum? I’ve heard of cheap cat6 being wiggy like that, because it’s not actually copper. Bummer.

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That’s the same price as normal, good, cat6

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So that photo is a photo of what looks like STP (shielded twisted pair) CAT6. Notice the metal sheath? UTP cables typically don’t have that. Though that may be due to the “outdoor” variant. From my experience a STP cable will have each twisted pair in its own sheath, and then a main outer sheath encompassing all the pairs in addition to the plastic spine.

My thoughts exactly. Seeing as how UTP Tbase1000 should be rated for up to 100m. Since the speed dropped down to 1/10 I suspect its either total shit or there is a bad twisted pair.

Seeing as how this is bulk cable, I would urge OP to use a cable tester to make sure they terminated both ends properly. If it fails he’ll have to re-terminate each end again to be safe. Unless they have the $500 Fluke tester.

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It does say solid bare copper, but yeah idk what this means:

Shielded outer sheath (F/UTP)

Or I know what it means (except for the F), but it’s contradictory.

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this. 10/100 only requires two working pair. Not so with 1000. Probably bad punchdown on a secondary pair. Or possibly an inconsistent amount of untwisted wires vs all the pairs.

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Thank you guys, although perhaps not. I searched high and low for my cable tester. Couldn’t find it so I went out tonight and bought a new one…the result:

So, I started by re-doing the connectors, I did the most awkward to get to one first, as we know that’ll be the issue…it was not this time! I then did the easier one to re-boot, and then (spoiler - fixed):

I’ve double double checked now, and transfer speeds from office to house/TrueNAS are as they should be (around 100-120MB). So thank you again all, really kind of you to contribute and make me double check things, really appreciated :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

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Glad we could help! :tada::sunglasses:

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You certainly did! :+1: :clap: :smiley:

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Only a little addition, but I swapped over to the new cable for a 40m/120ft length over the weekend, probably obvious but the Ping is now much better than before. I don’t game too often but I was getting Pings of 40-60, while now I’m getting between 10-30. Makes it way easier to game and all that.

Something that I found though, the new cable can’t be used with my normal connectors, the ones looking like this:

The twisted pairs just won’t go in as they’re too thick. Luckily I had a few keystone socket things and used them instead…bodge!

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Thats by design typically. Backbone cables are not meant to be used with straight-thru connectors. You need the female keystone jack for your backbone and then a stranded patch cable to your device.

So they way you have it is correct. Although, its a bit messy on the keystone side. You want as little of slack as possible so nothing moves around easily. I think you did a fair enough job though.

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You can get some of these for your wall place.

https://www.amazon.com/Everest-Media-Solutions-CAT6A-Keystone/dp/B0917LTR2Z/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1FKK3J0R6N9LZ&dchild=1&keywords=cat6a+keystone+jack&qid=1634582546&sr=8-5

And there are some nice 45o plates you can get as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Leviton-41081-2WP-Angled-QuickPort-Wallplate/dp/B003ATQCPA/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=angled+wall+plate&qid=1634582607&sr=8-1

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I did wonder if it was a ‘by design’ situation, thank you very much for confirming :+1: I did see that you can get RJ45 connectors that connect into the back of the keystone, but of course I can’t do that because of the size. Sorry, but I did a search for female keystone and got some strange results?

Well, at least I’ve done it right (by luck more than anything!). Are you saying that slack on the back of the keystone is bad? As in the individual strands or just the whole cable? I’ll take a little video tomorrow and send a linky. :+1:

Oh, the stranded patch cables, do you mean little short cables? I left a rented office a while back and they let me have a selection of network gear…I took it all as it was free! Actually, I posted about it on here ages ago…how time flies! :slight_smile:

I’ve actually re-used some bits of it, the 8 port switch (2xSFP) is used in the house, and I even bought another one for the office because I was familiar with the GUI and it seemed rock solid, and quiet/fanless. Only down side is that it (Netgear ProSafe GS110TP) needed java to show usage, which is of course a dead parrot these days. :frowning:

Thanks for that…a great find :+1: They’re out of stock over here (UK), but I’ve got quite a few of these:

So I bought a few of these as I I like modular’s

And then to keep it in place I bought one of these

And even though I’m working in a building site, bought one of these so it’s pretty :laughing:

They look practical though - is there a reason that they are angled downwards?

Thanks again fellas! :+1:

Np, friend.

The backbone wires will actually fit inside of more simpler RJ45 connector. The ones you’re using have that additional plastic sheath to insert the wires in; which are of a specific AWG. These are known as convenience or EZ connectors. Non-EZ connectors might actually fit. YMMV. How you have it configured is best.

A search for ‘keystone’ jack will do you just fine. I said female to emphasis the fact that you have to plug something into it.

If it meets your desired speed then its correct. Like it will do gigabit just fine. But for 10G, you want to ensure that the twisted pairs in the back are twisted right up until they need to separate to go into the slits. These small things matter once you’re talking about higher speeds. The exposed cable bits at the back aren’t that big of a deal but its more of a personal thing (at least for me). It’s good to keep things as shielded as possible, for various protections against the elements and fauna.

Yes. A patch cable is a networking term for, in layman terms, plugging one device into another and have them communicate. Being ‘stranded’ refers to the rigidity of the individual wires. Your backbone cable is solid copper core, so it will be inflexible. Stranded cables can also be solid copper, but instead of one thick solid wire they are made up of many much smaller individual copper wires. This makes them more bendy-bendy and ideal for use on the end side of things.

If you have a sacrificial cable I encourage you to cut it up and look at it and compare it to your backbone cable.

Quality of life. Optional. For me, being angled downwards at 45 degrees makes them much more tolerable since they won’t be sticking out so damn far. It also makes it ‘feel’ better plugging it in. But basically just down to aesthetics. Unless of course you plan to push something up right up flush to it. Like a couch, or there is an alcove in the wall behind a wall-mounted TV. They’re more practical in those scenarios.

Thanks pal, I get ya now, may be I’ll get some of them just in case. :+1:

I understand now, cheers. I do prefer the punch down version - they’re better for eyes that don’t work so well!

I think it’s OK at the moment, though the first keystone I did, it sounds like I did it the reverse/bad way by separating the wires (untwisting them)…ooops. It’s working OK, but I’m not confident with the quality/ping of the connection. Mind you, it’s only on a 20m/60ft run. I get you though, next time I’ll keep them twisted for as long as possible :+1:

The cable I’m using, although CAT6, I’m not intending to have 10G, instead my final goal is to have 1 x 1G copper running to the house and office, but also a 10G fibre to and from the house. The latter will only run to a snapshot machine, my workstation and the main server (a re-purposed Xeon based workstation). Later on I hope to only have 1 x 1G fibre and 1 x 10G fibre running between the buildings, just for lightning protection (not that we get much of that here).

Ah thanks again, wealth of knowledge you are :slight_smile: So smaller the distance, skinnier the cable can be.

That makes sense, I might get some of those for some rooms, I’ll definitely note them. :+1: