Silly problem with cat5e cabling.

[mr moose]

I have Cat5e run all through my house, have had no issues with it so far.  I have terminated it all myself along with all my patch cables and no issues there either.  I ran a new cable to a TV, terminated it like all the others, plugged in a cable tester and it checks out pin for pin and ground all conducting just fine.  But for the life of me I can't get anything to work on it. I have tried different computers, different switches and ports (they all work on all the other cables in the house just not this one.  

 

How does it check out fine on the tester but not work?   I'd be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience or know of an occasional problem that causes this.

[Bananasplit_00]

I have experienced this is computer class, we were making cat5e cables so that everyone could do it, I finished pretty fast as I have done it a few times before, checked fine but didn't work. Think I just ended up making a couple new ones(because I screwed up the order, got broken cables and so on a few times lol) and got one working eventually, not sure why it didn't work though but I think there might have been a small break in the cable on one of the wires that the tester might have been strong enough to jump but the signal wasent or something like that

[Praxis727]

how many cables in total in the house and what are you using for main router? Also two things to look for on the cable itself are making sure full contact on RJ45 connector (making sure all wires  are pushed all the way in) as well as being sure you matched your color code on both sides of the wire without mixups for solid color and striped color wires(I know it is obvious and commons sense but I ask because it happens sometimes when you just want to make a cable quick)

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, Praxis727 said:

how many cables in total in the house and what are you using for main router?

8 cable runs, router is combination of gigabit wireless router combo with dhcp for the main 4 pcs and a 10/100 switch for the rest.   The weird bit is it's just this one run that doesn't work but checks out fine.

[Praxis727]

what model router as well as what other devices on switch.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Praxis727 said:

what model router as well as what other devices on switch.

Not sure why that info would help,  all the other cables work, in all the other ports just not his one in any port.

 

But if there is something it is a  TP Link Archer D2 running as router only (I have a separate modem) and the 10/100 is a linksys SD208.

[Praxis727]

if you take the cable and plug it into one of the tp link ports that work and use it on the device that was working, does the cable work.  Basically if it doesn't then it is the cable and a misconnection via order of wire or connectivity.  If it does though then there is an issue assigning multiple addresses from the linksys switch 

[mr moose]

15 minutes ago, Praxis727 said:

if you take the cable and plug it into one of the tp link ports that work and use it on the device that was working, does the cable work. 

No, the cable does not work on any computer or port,  it only works with the testing tool I have though. 

15 minutes ago, Praxis727 said:

Basically if it doesn't then it is the cable and a misconnection via order of wire or connectivity.  If it does though then there is an issue assigning multiple addresses from the linksys switch 

When trying to work out what was wrong I disconnected other devices to see if there was a conflict, however this did not help the router can easily manage more than the number of devices I have connected.

 

 

For all intents and purposes I would assume the cable was broken, except that  the tester which so far has been accurate with all other cables, says it's fine. 

 

Cheers anyway.

[Praxis727]

Bah, I have heard of situations where switches dont bridge correctly with routers so router doesn't assign mac and ip on more then one device.  It confuses me because I seriously doubt after doing all the other cables it is something you did.  I mean everything else works clearly you know what you are doing there.  Also find it difficult to think that wire is broken part cable wheel (just doesnt usually happen)  But all signs point to it.  Just a random setback haha.  Good luck and have a good one!!!!

[intertan]

how high end is your tester? most testers just check for continuity and that is it. 

 

Have had a few times were a cable test fine but there was a staple through it. This caused it not to work.

[hammerfast]

Cat 5e is crap , it loses all the electricity on  a short measurement like 30 meters or so . even in our crappy country and our crappy city everyone is using cat 6 even for 100 mbits capable devices .. i my self am starting to use cat 7 . 

[mynameisjuan]

4 hours ago, hammerfast said:

Cat 5e is crap , it loses all the electricity on  a short measurement like 30 meters or so . even in our crappy country and our crappy city everyone is using cat 6 even for 100 mbits capable devices .. i my self am starting to use cat 7 . 

What are you talking about? 5e is fine, cat 6 is a pain in the ass and I highly, HIGHLY doubt you use cat 7. 

 

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

I have Cat5e run all through my house, have had no issues with it so far.  I have terminated it all myself along with all my patch cables and no issues there either.  I ran a new cable to a TV, terminated it like all the others, plugged in a cable tester and it checks out pin for pin and ground all conducting just fine.  But for the life of me I can't get anything to work on it. I have tried different computers, different switches and ports (they all work on all the other cables in the house just not this one.  

 

How does it check out fine on the tester but not work?   I'd be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience or know of an occasional problem that causes this.

This is going to be dumb but have you tried re-terminating the cable? 

 

I have done 1000s of terminations and stopped using a tester just because of running into issues like this. Testers tend to put out a bit more voltage which could be enough to arc when testing but not when in actual use. 

 

I would try re-terminated (if not done already).

[beersykins]

Did you just run the cable or did you run it a while ago?

 

Do you have any pics of the terminations?  Usually it's pretty straightforward such as something wrong with the terminations or something wrong with the cable (like a nail or staple).  The latter is a lot less likely if you literally just ran the cable.  You could also reterminate into a different keystone jack to isolate that component.

4 hours ago, hammerfast said:

Cat 5e is crap , it loses all the electricity on  a short measurement like 30 meters or so . even in our crappy country and our crappy city everyone is using cat 6 even for 100 mbits capable devices .. i my self am starting to use cat 7 . 

 

You have no idea what you're talking about.

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, intertan said:

how high end is your tester? most testers just check for continuity and that is it. 

 

Have had a few times were a cable test fine but there was a staple through it. This caused it not to work.

It's not very high end, I I might have to run a new cable at this rate.

7 hours ago, hammerfast said:

Cat 5e is crap , it loses all the electricity on  a short measurement like 30 meters or so . even in our crappy country and our crappy city everyone is using cat 6 even for 100 mbits capable devices .. i my self am starting to use cat 7 . 

It's cable I have from 2006, If I was buying it now I would buy better cable, however the distance isn;t really a problem, I have a 50Metre cable made up from it that I am using right now and it works just fine.

3 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

What are you talking about? 5e is fine, cat 6 is a pain in the ass and I highly, HIGHLY doubt you use cat 7. 

 

This is going to be dumb but have you tried re-terminating the cable? 

 

I have done 1000s of terminations and stopped using a tester just because of running into issues like this. Testers tend to put out a bit more voltage which could be enough to arc when testing but not when in actual use. 

 

I would try re-terminated (if not done already).

Yes I have tried re terminating, I guess I am just going to have to pull it out and start again

 

 

Thanks for all the ideas.

[Spotty]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

Yes I have tried re terminating, I guess I am just going to have to pull it out and start again

Might be a small fault somewhere along the line.
Pull it out, check it for any cuts or frays. Might have been nicked or damaged while running it through the walls on an exposed nail or crushed in a pinch point or simple things like that. Could even just be a bad cable.

 

Time to run a new cable.