Network cable tester & broken cable?


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My network cable tester looks pretty much exactly like this one:

 

41cETGDZNAL._SY300_.thumb.jpg.e2cc8ebacc

 

I had a solid cat6 cable ran under floorboards. I terminated one end in to a cat6 faceplate & then i bought a keystone jack (because i'm not quite ready to do the other end yet & just wanted to simple test whether it was working or not.

 

When the jack came out it was stamped up cat5e if that makes a difference? Wasn't advertised as such though.

 

Anyway, plugged the tester in & it went through the sequence ... 1-2-3-4-5...7-8. It skipped 6 every time.

 

I thought a bad cable would light red or something but maybe it just skips it like this?

 

Is there any way at all of seeing where on a 25mtr cable that the break, if one exists, is?

 

It's all behind skirting board & such now too :( This could get messy :(

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Yeah what's been showing on one end has been mirrored on the other end.

 

When the workmen pulled the cable through i noticed there was a bit of a kink at one end despite me telling them not to bend it. I had put the keystone jack on so that the kink was included in the cable run - that's when 6 drew a blank.

 

I just chopped that out & re-did the keystone jack. Now 5 & 8 are blank but 6 is good.

 

Are you able to decipher this & tell me where i'm going wrong? Thanks.

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6 hours ago, Technique said:

When the workmen pulled the cable through

So these guys were not cable guys?  Why would they not terminate the cable for you?  And you had to remind them not to bend it?  Sounds like some day laborers you picked up in front of the home depot ;)

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47 minutes ago, BinaryData said:

cat5_pin_assgmt_strt.gif

 

Pretty sure this is the right way to do it. At least, this is how all my cables are. I can't remember if it's A or B, or which country uses which.

That's 568B, mainly used in Europe. For USA/Canada (568A) just invert white green with white orange, and invert green with orange.

 

To help with your problem, either your bixing tool or crimper could be defective.

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19 minutes ago, FrancoisC said:

That's 568B, mainly used in Europe. For USA/Canada (568A) just invert white green with white orange, and invert green with orange.

 

There ya go right there....invert the two, and wham bam, thank you ma'am! Made plenty of cables....this should work perfectly. (Basically, all you're doing is crossing which wires talk to which end, but correct me if I'm wrong)

 

http://www.bb-elec.com/Learning-Center/All-White-Papers/Ethernet/Cat5e-Cable-Wiring-Schemes.aspx

Edited by Obi-Wan Kenobi
Edited fer newbs
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17 minutes ago, FrancoisC said:

That's 568B, mainly used in Europe. For USA/Canada (568A) just invert white green with white orange, and invert green with orange.

 

To help with your problem, either your bixing tool or crimper could be defective.

Ahhh.. I couldn't remember which one it was. I haven't crimped cables in forever, not since my job pre-orders specific lengths now.

 

@ OP Make sure you're also pushing the wires in as far as they can go. I've seen some bad wiring jobs where the clips had 1 short wire that wasn't making good contact.

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No they weren't cable guys they were builders & I said i'd terminate the ends because a) I've done it before & b) they didn't have a clue about network cabling as its not their area. 

 

I'm also not crimping to an RJ45 plug. One end is in a cat6 faceplate & the other is to a (temporary) keystone jack until I'm ready to backbox & faceplate that end too. The keystone jack is purely for testing purposes. 

 

Also so both have been wired up according to the B layout of wiring as labelled on each termination point. 

 

Like me I said I've terminated on these things before with the punch down tool. The only difference here is I've never used solid cable before. It's only ever been stranded. 

 

The other problem is I don't know which end is causing the fault. I could keep re-trying one end when it may be the other end that isn't terminated properly. I've left SOME loose on the alreadyfaceplated end but I think only enough for 1 more attempt.

 

I I don't understand it. I put the correct colours at the correct points & punched down as far as it would go. 

 

I'll try the faceplate on the end that currently has the keystone jack but after that I'm clueless. 

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If you're only doing data, only the orange and green wires are used anyway.  It's a good idea to have all the wires crimped good in case you want to use the same cabling for something else later; poe devices or whatever, but for simple data transmission all you need is 1, 2, 3, and 6. (blue and brown unused)

 

A good way to tell if you've pushed the wires far enough into an RJ-45 is if you can see the bare copper in the end of the connector.  If you can't, they're not far enough in there.

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It might be an idea to test the tester with a short patch cable you know to be working.

 

I had one cable I must have re-terminated 4 or 5 times before I realised actually the termination was fine and the tester had gone faulty :rofl:

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Thanks I'll do that with the cable. 

 

This run will be used at the moment simply to connect a Smart TV to. In the future who knows. Maybe there'll be something although right now I doubt it, but that's the purpose of this run - so the smart TV can be hard wired. 

 

I I also don't know what colours the numbers correspond to. #6 was out initially but there's no marking of a #6 on the faceplate or keystone jack. Just colours next to where they should be. 

 

Malady (<~~~~ wtf? My phone autocorrected to that from "last") anyway...last resort will be to rip it out & run stranded cat6 through there as I've worked with that before. Only issue is its tucked in behind the skirting so I really need this to work if possible. 

 

And if any of what I type doesn't make sense here then I'm currently on my phone with a strange autocorrect. 

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4 hours ago, Gerowen said:

If you're only doing data, only the orange and green wires are used anyway

Huh???  Where have you been?  Sorry but for gig you need all 8 wires

 

gigwire.thumb.png.d0a1792ccd7239962c0d93

 

10/100 you don't need all pairs, but if you want gig to work then you need all 4 pairs.

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That's the thing - I've no way of knowing which end is bad (unless I buy more & more faceplates).  

I did a little googling on my break at work earlier & found cases of people who had found terminating cat 5 a simple task but problems with cat6. 

 

The cable I've done in the past has been cat5e. Maybe I should've stuck with that. 

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1 minute ago, Technique said:

That's the thing - I've no way of knowing which end is bad (unless I buy more & more faceplates).  

I did a little googling on my break at work earlier & found cases of people who had found terminating cat 5 a simple task but problems with cat6. 

 

The cable I've done in the past has been cat5e. Maybe I should've stuck with that. 

Uhh... I used to make cables all the time, part of our A+ study was to re-cable places when I attended Job Corps. I've never seen anyone have an issue with cat6. Sure the plastic divider is annoying to work with, but it isn't that big of an issue. I cable it the same way I cable my cat5 connections.

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15 minutes ago, Technique said:

The cable I've done in the past has been cat5e. Maybe I should've stuck with that. 

Pretty sure that thread pointed to 5e being fine and stranded also being fine..

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35 minutes ago, Technique said:

That's the thing - I've no way of knowing which end is bad (unless I buy more & more faceplates).  

There's only 2 ends to each cable so this shouldn't be that hard to troubleshoot.

 

Cut each end, re-do it properly, then if it still fails you've got a cut in the cable somewhere. This isn't rocket science.

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Why don't you just test each wire before you crimp it to anything..  Test each wire... If they are good, and then when you crimp they show bad - then you know you crimped bad.

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8 hours ago, FrancoisC said:

That's 568B, mainly used in Europe. For USA/Canada (568A) just invert white green with white orange, and invert green with orange.

 

To help with your problem, either your bixing tool or crimper could be defective.

B is the current standard that every cable vendor/electrictian that I have dealt with uses (PA, NJ, NY, FL, IL....all USA based).   Every patch cable that I have bought is also B standard.

 

 

In all reality though it doesn't matter as long as both ends are terminated the same way.  If you reverse the orange and green pair on only one end, you have made a cross over.

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5 minutes ago, BudMan said:

Why don't you just test each wire before you crimp it to anything..  Test each wire... If they are good, and then when you crimp they show bad - then you know you crimped bad.

It could be a bad keystone/used the wrong tool and made the keystone bad. 

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8 minutes ago, xendrome said:

There's only 2 ends to each cable so this shouldn't be that hard to troubleshoot.

 

Cut each end, re-do it properly, then if it still fails you've got a cut in the cable somewhere. This isn't rocket science.

Would it be certainly me & the push down tool if when I tested one time #6 didn't light but then when I re-do that end #6 lights but then #5 & #8 don't? Or can there still be a break in the middle in this case?

 

and how do you test individual wires? I'll do that if I can. 

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do you have a continuity tester or fluke? Ohm/voltage meter? 

 

If you don't have a continuity tester with remote probe then you just connect wires together at one end and test at other end.  Alligator clips come in very handy here.  If test good then swap out 1 of the wires for another wire until you have tested them all good or found bad one(s).

 

If your first test use another pair until you know you have 2 good ones, then just swap out one at a time.

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