cat5e or cat6 ethernet cable?

[derpyhooves25]

so im upgrading to a new internet modem at home and im planing to get a wired connection for my computer instead of using wireless. the router im getting will be the asus n55u. the cable length will have to be approx 30m. will cat5e be good enough or should i spend a bit more and get a cat6 ethernet cable?

[ROK]

Cat6 is unnecessary and more expensive. Grab a cat5e for like $6 off amazon or monorpice.

[TheKDub]

Cat5e is enough.

[Lingering]

Cat 5e is fine for usage where you don't need to guarantee gigabit its just not certified for it but is more than capable or near gigabit connections.

[RedPanda]

Cat 5e will also be easier to terminate.

[Curt]

Just got a 30m CAT5e for £3.00. It's cheap, reliable and fast. 

[derpyhooves25]

ok thanks guys for all your help. and i might be downgrading to the asus n300 instead of the n600 cause of money and and current router not being reliable

[Blade of Grass]

How much more is the Cat6 cable? If it's not a huge difference, I would suggest going for it.

[dalekphalm]

Cat 5e is fine for usage where you don't need to guarantee gigabit its just not certified for it but is more than capable or near gigabit connections.

Actually this is incorrect. Cat5e is certified for Gigabit runs up to 55 meters I believe, but it's definitely certified for Gigabit.

[EmeraldFlame]

so im upgrading to a new internet modem at home and im planing to get a wired connection for my computer instead of using wireless. the router im getting will be the asus n55u. the cable length will have to be approx 30m. will cat5e be good enough or should i spend a bit more and get a cat6 ethernet cable?

 

Is this run of ethernet going to be installed inside of a wall? If it is, get CAT6 despite what others have said. CAT5e is cheaper, but CAT6 isn't much more expensive. Running cables through walls is a pain in the butt though, your better off just running the CAT6 now instead of running CAT5e and then in another 5 years (or whenever 10Gbe becomes a normal thing) having to rip it out and run CAT6. I mean you are literally talking a difference of maybe $3-4 on that long of a run.

 

Actually this is incorrect. Cat5e is certified for Gigabit runs up to 55 meters I believe, but it's definitely certified for Gigabit.

 

I can concur with you. CAT5e is certified for Gigabit speeds, can't remember how long of a run it can handle at that, but it definitely is.

[derpyhooves25]

The cable will be running outside the house and is easily reachabl

[Ocelaris]

If it's outside, make sure to get the waterproof/sun resistant jacket. Most cat 5/5e/6 is not meant to be exposed to sun/water over any length of time. The jacket on the outdoor cabling is much more resistant. IMO, 5e is fine, and that's what I used in my house and that $hit is permanent!.  Terminating 6 is a pain, especially if you've never done it before (the cross inside). But if you're just running 1 cable, it's not that tough to make either. If you're going to run more than a few, definitely get a tester, nothing fancy, but just to confirm that all your pins are crimped correctly. I have wired probably a 100 houses, and just did our new house, and out of 40 some runs, I'd say 3 had a missing pin or two, and had to recrimp them; without a tool it's hard to tell if you missed a wire or you have it hooked up wrong.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899261015

[dalekphalm]

The cable will be running outside the house and is easily reachabl

If you're running the cable outside, you must get outdoor rated cable. Regular ethernet cable will degrade over time from the elements, and will not last. Cat6 has thicker insulation, but there are specific outdoor types of both Cat5e and Cat6. If the cable is easily reachable, then I would look at Cat5e (Outdoor rated) and compare the price to Cat6 (Outdoor rated). If the difference is a couple bucks, just get Cat6 outdoor cable. If the difference is more than a few bucks, then get the cheaper Cat5e.

 

In either case, please make sure you get outdoor rated cable.

[Th3Architect]

If it's outside, make sure to get the waterproof/sun resistant jacket. Most cat 5/5e/6 is not meant to be exposed to sun/water over any length of time. The jacket on the outdoor cabling is much more resistant. IMO, 5e is fine, and that's what I used in my house and that $hit is permanent!.  Terminating 6 is a pain, especially if you've never done it before (the cross inside). But if you're just running 1 cable, it's not that tough to make either. If you're going to run more than a few, definitely get a tester, nothing fancy, but just to confirm that all your pins are crimped correctly. I have wired probably a 100 houses, and just did our new house, and out of 40 some runs, I'd say 3 had a missing pin or two, and had to recrimp them; without a tool it's hard to tell if you missed a wire or you have it hooked up wrong.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899261015

 

Glad this has come up...I've had an outside rated cat6 cable ran on the outside of my house from 1st floor up to the 3rd floor, until recently I thought I was getting gigabit speeds - could of sworn I was about a month ago when it was first installed and checked it by running it straight into PC - Basically the lead runs from a BT HH downstairs up the side of the house and into an asus dsl - ac68u where I am using that as a switch and AP (the house is pretty big) - because the asus is gigabit it shows my connection in windows as gigabit but if I log into the BT Router it shows my PC and everything else plugged into the asus (a freenas server and HTPC) as running at 100mbps???

 

I have done some researching on this and all I can find is people online saying that hand crimping standard RJ-45 ends on cat6 cable is no good, is this whats causing the issue or would you look elsewhere?

 

I'm quite annoyed about the situation at the moment as I paid £100 to have it ran up the side of the house. Please feel free to ask anymore questions I'm desperate to find a solution.

[Ocelaris]

For about 20-30$ you need to get a cable tester to verify all pins an your cat6 are making contact. 10/100 ethernet uses 2 pair (inner orange/blue wires). Gigabit uses all 4 pair; so if you are missing a pin then it will fall back to 10/100. If all pins are making contact, you don't have any issues with the RJ-45 connector. 99% of the time it's not the cabling slowing you down. 

 

More likely what you're seeing is that your firewall/router or Asus isn't gigabit completely. Basically what you should get is a true gigabit switch, and then have your slower router or wifi access points tapped off of that. Just make sure that your computers can get to wherever they need to go without going through your router which is probably the limiting factor. Are you sure your BT HH supports gigabit? 

 

Also just because a port is "gigabit" doesn't mean that it can flow gigabit through the backplane, i.e. the switch might not be able to pass data fast enough. If you're really worried get a nice cisco prosumer gigabit switch and tap everything off of that, and only use your access point and router as taps off of that switch. 

[costin.buga]

For about 20-30$ you need to get a cable tester to verify all pins an your cat6 are making contact. 10/100 ethernet uses 2 pair (inner orange/blue wires).

 

A tester is very handy but you don't need a 20-30$ one.

Here's a 6$ one that will do the job:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4V61HW6137&cm_re=ethernet_tester-_-9SIA4V61HW6137-_-Product

 

For cat6 cable i recomand a connector like this:

http://www.showmecables.com/product/Cat6-Connector-With-Guide.aspx

You can use a standard plier for it.

[EmeraldFlame]

The cable will be running outside the house and is easily reachabl

 

Since it is outside and easily reachable, get whatever, just make sure it is rated for outdoor use because regular ethernet will not hold up for long in outdoor conditions. If the price difference is just a few bucks, pick up the cat6. 

 

 

Glad this has come up...I've had an outside rated cat6 cable ran on the outside of my house from 1st floor up to the 3rd floor, until recently I thought I was getting gigabit speeds - could of sworn I was about a month ago when it was first installed and checked it by running it straight into PC - Basically the lead runs from a BT HH downstairs up the side of the house and into an asus dsl - ac68u where I am using that as a switch and AP (the house is pretty big) - because the asus is gigabit it shows my connection in windows as gigabit but if I log into the BT Router it shows my PC and everything else plugged into the asus (a freenas server and HTPC) as running at 100mbps???

 

I have done some researching on this and all I can find is people online saying that hand crimping standard RJ-45 ends on cat6 cable is no good, is this whats causing the issue or would you look elsewhere?

 

I'm quite annoyed about the situation at the moment as I paid £100 to have it ran up the side of the house. Please feel free to ask anymore questions I'm desperate to find a solution.

 

Hand crimping cat6 is perfectly fine, I do it all the time and I have used cat6 on 10Gb networks and get full bandwidth out of them. I would pick up a cheap tester and make sure one of the wires isn't broken and it fell back to a slower standard. It's most likely a problem somewhere else in the network where it is only being supplied with 10/100 though.

[skywake]

Use Cat5e for anywhere where the cable can easily be replaced because it'll be fine for 1Gbps. If you're doing something more permanent go with Cat6 purely because you're not going to want to replacing them down the road if/when you want 10Gbps out of it. The only time I could go Cat6 over Cat5e for less permanent stuff would be if you know you need 10Gbps now or if the cost is close enough that it doesn't really matter.

[Th3Architect]

For about 20-30$ you need to get a cable tester to verify all pins an your cat6 are making contact. 10/100 ethernet uses 2 pair (inner orange/blue wires). Gigabit uses all 4 pair; so if you are missing a pin then it will fall back to 10/100. If all pins are making contact, you don't have any issues with the RJ-45 connector. 99% of the time it's not the cabling slowing you down. 

 

More likely what you're seeing is that your firewall/router or Asus isn't gigabit completely. Basically what you should get is a true gigabit switch, and then have your slower router or wifi access points tapped off of that. Just make sure that your computers can get to wherever they need to go without going through your router which is probably the limiting factor. Are you sure your BT HH supports gigabit? 

 

Also just because a port is "gigabit" doesn't mean that it can flow gigabit through the backplane, i.e. the switch might not be able to pass data fast enough. If you're really worried get a nice cisco prosumer gigabit switch and tap everything off of that, and only use your access point and router as taps off of that switch. 

 

Thanks for the reply Ocelaris, I have bought a tester and will be using that as soon as I can, below is my setup in two different configs both show me running at 100mbps in the BT Manager but running gigabit in Windows, my bros PC is always showing gigabit.

 

1st setup

http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/image/6806693/L.png

 

2nd setup

http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/image/6806735/L.png

[Th3Architect]

there both the same my bad heres other setup

 

http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/image/6806735/L.png

[Ocelaris]

What does the freenas say, is it also in 100 Mbps? if you have an ssh into it, you ran run this command:

 

[root@YourLinuxBox]# dmesg | grep -i duplex

e1000: eth0 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None

 

If your Bro's PC is gig, the only difference between you and him is that Asus DSL-AC68U and the 2 wires... so my first preference would be to plug in straight to the BT HH and see if you're getting Gig, if you can bypass the ASUS DSL-AC68U or swap the gigabit switch for the Asus does that change things? 

 

Some switches have auto-negotiation, but if it's not, you can use a crossover cable to be sure. The other thing is that your ASUS DSL-AC68U may have a "WAN" port, which may only be 10/100 that you're plugged into.

 

Since you're plugged in directly to the ASUS, then your "link" is 10/100, but that's all it tells you, it doesn't tell you past the first switch (Asus DSL) whether it's 10/100 after that. So it's probably just your link, so try to narrow down where it says 10/100 and where it says gigabit. If you have a laptop, it would be extremely useful here to find out what links say gig vs. 10/100. Remove variables until you find the "bad" link.  

[Th3Architect]

 

What does the freenas say, is it also in 100 Mbps? if you have an ssh into it, you ran run this command:

 

[root@YourLinuxBox]# dmesg | grep -i duplex

e1000: eth0 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None

 

If your Bro's PC is gig, the only difference between you and him is that Asus DSL-AC68U and the 2 wires... so my first preference would be to plug in straight to the BT HH and see if you're getting Gig, if you can bypass the ASUS DSL-AC68U or swap the gigabit switch for the Asus does that change things? 

 

Some switches have auto-negotiation, but if it's not, you can use a crossover cable to be sure. The other thing is that your ASUS DSL-AC68U may have a "WAN" port, which may only be 10/100 that you're plugged into.

 

Since you're plugged in directly to the ASUS, then your "link" is 10/100, but that's all it tells you, it doesn't tell you past the first switch (Asus DSL) whether it's 10/100 after that. So it's probably just your link, so try to narrow down where it says 10/100 and where it says gigabit. If you have a laptop, it would be extremely useful here to find out what links say gig vs. 10/100. Remove variables until you find the "bad" link.  

 

Hey thanks for the input, I will try all of the above tomorrow and report back! Thanks again

[Th3Architect]

Ok so I've tried all of the above and I get gigE speeds when hooked up to the HH as soon as I go back upstairs either off the switch or ASUS router I'm getting FE speeds, got a cable tester coming in tomorrow will try that thinking it could be a pin out job...

[Th3Architect]

I can confirm using the LAN tester its faulty wiring (the guy that did it had never done one before) got all the tools at work so will have a go at re doing them myself

[dalekphalm]

I can confirm using the LAN tester its faulty wiring (the guy that did it had never done one before) got all the tools at work so will have a go at re doing them myself

Yep, hand crimping isn't "complex", but it does take a bit of skill and careful attention to detail.

 

Cat6 hand crimping is a bit more difficult in some ways, because of the internal crossbar piece, but the basic methodology is still the same. Re-crimp it, (with a new RJ-45 connector - don't reuse the same one), and odds are, your speeds will be good again.