home network wiring questions

[Xylob the Destroyer]

hey all.
we just bought a house. the property was a "flip" -- the guy we bought it from bought it for a cheap price as it had some 'issues', remodeled it, and then turned around and sold it (to us!) for a profit.
it had previously been owned by an elderly widow who was on a fixed income. she couldn't do much as far as maintenance and couldn't afford to pay anybody to do it either.
also, she was one of those 'crazy cat ladies' -- many cats in the house, very eccentric and weird. literally piles of garbage in the house with paths cut through the trash
he bought the house dirt cheap, but in the end didn't make as much profit as he had anticipated (just didn't realize what he was getting himself into...)

anywhoooo, getting on to the point:
dude completely refinished the basement and totally rewired the entire house -- electrical as well as phone & cable/satellite.

for the phone lines, his electrical guy ran cat5e through the house.
in the utility room in the basement, there is one cat5 nailed to the wall next to all of the coax ends and it just goes up into the rafters and disappears into the house from there (the utility room is the only unfinished part).
apparently this cat5 is to be used as the phone supply, but we have only used cell phones for over 2 years now -- no need for a land line really.
with the exception of the bathrooms, every room in the house has a wall plate labled with masking tape that has "cable & phone" on it.

upstairs, the living room has one coax and one cat5
same in the smallest bedroom
the 2 other bedrooms upstairs have 1 coax and 2 cat5 in each wall box
the basement living room has 2 wall boxes that each have 1 coax and 2 cat5 in each wall box
finally the new master bedroom in the basement (our future home theatre) also has 1 wall box with 1 coax and 2 cat5

can anybody tell me what the 2nd cat5 in those rooms may be?
none of these cables (coax or cat5) have any 'ends' or plugs on them
ideally, I'd like to be able to put the cable modem in the utility room and plug each rooms PC into a wall jack
any way that I can utilize this odd wiring configuration as a home network?

all helpful input will be greatly appreciated.

TIA!!

[gadgetguy]

It sounds to me like he ran the Cat5 from the utility room to the first box, and then from that box to the next box, etc. in a daisy chain configuration. This will work fine for analog phone lines, but it will suck for trying to connect a home network. Assuming the Cat5 cable has 4 pair, the most you'd be able to do is 2 devices and you'd have to splice the cable at all the boxes to get it right.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

I can't figure out why some of the boxes have 2 cat5 in them...
at first I thought that maybe it was looped in each box and had just been cut, but after examining them closely that's clearly not the case (unless they cut a big chunk out of each loop for some weird-ass reason).

each is clearly marked "4PR 24G" -- that's four pair, 24 gauge.
it's not fastcat, but cat5e is a better place to start than nowhere -- at least it's a small step up from regular cat5

[gadgetguy]

I can't figure out why some of the boxes have 2 cat5 in them...

As I tried to explain. It sounds like one of the cat5 cables is incoming from the previous box and the other is the outgoing to the next box. The box with only one cat5 would be the end of the line. I don't know the layout of the house but as an example lets say the wire from the utility room goes to the first box in the basement living room. The next cable goes from the first box in the basement living room to the second box in the basement living room. Then the next wire goes from the 2nd box in the basement living room to the box in the new master bedroom. The next wire goes from the new master bedroom to the upstairs living room which is the end of the line. Each of those boxes would have 2 cat5 cables in them but they daisy chain from one to the next.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

got it.
sometimes you practically have to draw me a picture...
thanks man.

[gadgetguy]

The confusing part is that you have more than one box with only one Cat5 in it. (If I read your first post right.) So I could be wrong.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

yeh, but those 2 boxes are back-to-back. if i take the cover plates off both, I can see right through to the other room.

[ZAPPER]

Yep sounds like a daisy chain to me, but I am a bit confused the more I read. There should be one Cat 5 cable end at the start and two in every box except the end of the run. (I think that you are saying that the back to back wall boxes are the only location where there is only one cable end, other than the starting point) and that should be the end of the run.



It will work for phones (I think it is a weak way to do it, but it works) My question is do the cables move freely enough to be used as pull strings for new cable? And do you think that there would be any chance of pulling what you needed thru the exisitng pathways that the "Guy" used?

What I am getting at is just run new cables for what you want. Sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge but it will be what you want and need.



Good luck

[Xylob the Destroyer]

that was the first thing i thought....
there's about 2 feet of cable wadded up into each box, but when I pull on it, that shit ain't movin'....
SUCKS!

[ZAPPER]

that was the first thing i thought....
there's about 2 feet of cable wadded up into each box, but when I pull on it, that shit ain't movin'....
SUCKS!

Oh, great! Now you got to wonder why it aint moving, staples can be bad Juju for wires.



Tuff luck, But it aint all that bad, just put in the wires that you will need for yourself.

[jimmalenko]

Would it be worthwhile to suggest you get a sparky in to assess all the cables and tell you exactly where each one goes ?

As the rest of us are going "blind", it would seem to me to be the only way to ultimately get the correct answer.

[gadgetguy]

Get youself one of these (click here) and you can trace where each cable runs to. Or if you're in my neck of the planet I'd be willing to help you out.

[Nelson37]

Phone guys typically do not know dick about running network cable. Directly over flourescent lights, right next to heavy electrical motors, nails right thru the cable, etc. Not to mention what they do to the jacks, totally out-of-spec.

You will probably end up re-running all the cable, consider just connecting your internet feed and a wireless router and maybe an upstairs access point.

[ZAPPER]

Ah lighten up, the "Guy" ran the wires for phones and labled them as such. Phones will most likely work (I could be wrong and it wouldn't be the first time)

With a network you are stepping up to a higher standard and as such you should do it right yourself or oversee someone else doing it right for you. No biggie. I am in the commercial end of construction and see two types of work, those that give you the bare minimum of what you spec and pay for, and those that give it to you right.

[SingSing]

The last guy in my office cat5e his house 2 years ago, was the last guy I know of. With the rage of wireless lan, the rage was about hacking wireless router to get a bigger range.

I would said at most run a cat5e cable between the further ends of the house, and leave the rest to wireless lan like 802.11g.

[vcd_user]

You mentioned that , all the wires has no ends on it. I am not sure how much a special tools for putting the CAT5 ends costs you in your area. The total cost of the tools and the CAT5 ends (male and female) may be more than a wirless router and a few adapters. In Toronto, I can have 3-5 computer connected at 11 mbps for less than $100. A 80211G set up may be double that.
If you want to spend the time to sort out the wires, you can connect any two of the wires at one end of the cable, (say start from the basement) than go to each outlet to see if you can measure tha short using a regular meter. This way, with luck and patience, you should be able to sketch out the wiring.