[CS-FSLUG] Ethernet Testing

Wed Sep 5 07:43:38 CDT 2012

How long is this cable and how old is it. If its old enough it might to 
pay off to up grade to CAT6 or fiber.

On 09/05/2012 07:39 AM, Tim Young wrote:
> Hi there,
> A cat5 cable does not have "grounding" the same way that an "Cable-TV" 
> cable has.  So that should not enter into this.  You should be able to 
> ignore the grounding light.
>
> Oddly enough, there is just one pin that needs to be connected for the 
> "connection light" to be turned on.  BUT, it needs to go from one of 
> the TX (transfer) connections to an RX (receive) pin. Thus, if you do 
> not have a crossover cable, and you need one, the light never turns on.
>
> If your tester is actually working (and there is always a small chance 
> that the tester is bad), then it seems to be showing you that your 
> wire is connected.  This is step 1.  This does not mean that the wire 
> is good, but rather that the ends are connected. This is all the 
> device should need to give you a connection light.
>
> If you have issues with cable-length, fluorescent lights giving noise, 
> buried electrical cables giving noise, etc.  All of those should give 
> you "errors" on the device interface statistics.  It should not change 
> the status of the connection light.  Unless the voltage drop is so 
> huge across your cable that your device cannot sense the other end, it 
> should connect.
>
> The first test should be to take the two devices and plug them 
> straight into each-other with a short cable that your tester says has 
> the same pinout as your long cable.
>
>     - Tim Young
>
> On 9/4/2012 11:56 PM, Timothy Butler wrote:
>> Hi, Tim,
>>     I believe the pins are in the correct order. I'm using a Linksys 
>> router, which, I believe can automatically switch between crossover 
>> and not, although I didn't test these two particular units (I tried 
>> two WRT54G's) on a short cable to the same switch. Good idea!
>>
>>     The tester has 8 lights and a grounding light on both ends. On 
>> each end, each light should light in sequence -- one at a time -- if 
>> the cable is good. It did so on this cable.
>>
>>     Thanks!
>>
>>     Blessings,
>>         Tim
>>
>> On Sep 4, 2012, at 10:05 PM, Tim Young <Tim.Young at LightSys.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi there,
>>> I am assuming that, with your tester, all of the lights show that 
>>> they are connected to their respective pins?
>>> 1 - 1
>>> 2 - 2
>>> 3 - 3
>>> 4 - 4
>>> 5 - 5
>>> 6 - 6
>>> 7 - 7
>>> 8 - 8
>>> Or how does your tester show it is working?
>>>
>>> If all your pins are connected this way, and you are not getting any 
>>> lights at all on the WAP, my first guess is that you need to have a 
>>> "crossover" wire instead of a straight-through.  But that is easily 
>>> tested.
>>> Can you: take another, short wire and plug it into the SAME port of 
>>> the switch and the SAME port of the WAP and see if it lights up or 
>>> behaves in any way differently than your buried cable?
>>> If it does not work, you can see if a single port of your switch is 
>>> a "crossover port".  Some older devices were this way.  If this is 
>>> the case, and you need your crossover to connect your switch to 
>>> something else, you may need to rewire the cable to be a crossover 
>>> cable.
>>>
>>> If it is not an issue with a crossover cable, then I would need to 
>>> hear "how your tester says it works" before I try to give more 
>>> advice for testing, etc.  :)
>>>
>>>     - Tim Young
>>>
>>> On 9/4/2012 10:44 PM, Timothy Butler wrote:
>>>> I am trying to run Ethernet over a buried Cat 5e cable that worked 
>>>> OK with my cable tester I bought on Amazon 
>>>> (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P1OA1O/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00). 
>>>> However, when I plug a wireless access point in at the far end and 
>>>> plug the end by the existing network into a switch, nothing lights 
>>>> up on the switch end and the WAP's lan light blinks but never goes 
>>>> on solid.
>>>>
>>>> Any suggestions how I can figure out what is going wrong?
>>>>
>>>> I have a few suspicions:
>>>>
>>>> 1.) The wire is damaged underground (I hope not, because the 
>>>> conduit doesn't really have room for another cable pull).
>>>>
>>>> 2.) The ends have been stripped too far back. The twisted pairs 
>>>> were untwisted and the outer sheath removed for a foot or two of 
>>>> the cable that was wound in the box at the end of the conduit. Do 
>>>> you suppose this might be introducing too much interference? I hate 
>>>> to cut off all this extra cabling if I'm not certain this is the 
>>>> problem, but I'm suspicious...
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for any suggestions you might have...
>>>>
>>>> Blessings,
>>>> Tim
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
>>>> Christiansource at ofb.biz
>>>> http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
>>> Christiansource at ofb.biz
>>> http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
>> Christiansource at ofb.biz
>> http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
> Christiansource at ofb.biz
> http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>