Networking an office shed

[fathertobe]

Hi,

I ran around 25m of CAT5E external grade to my office shed. One end goes into the shed, the other into the house - and is then joined to a coupler to run the last few metres to the router (yes, i mismeasured by a few metres ... ops).

Anyway, I'm getting significant signal degradation - approx 50% or so.


I thought CAT5E was good for at least 25m or so (up to 100 without problems). Am I wrong? And if so, what's your advice?

This the cable in question: [url]http://snipurl.com/fp9mk[/url]

NB: Didn't use CAT6 as I needed something more flexible.

THanks!

 

[EddieM]

Good for 165m IIRC, somethings up.

 

[disinfo]

CAT5e is good for 90m for the "Permanent Link"

How are you measuring this signal degradation you speak of? I'm not sure what you mean

Cheap couplers are bad, replace it with a proper IDC connection box, but I doubt its the problem in this case.

P.S. Whats the set up? Socket to patch panel, Socket to socket or just Plug to plug?

 

[EddieM]

Yeah, check what the degradation is before and after the coupler I think 165m is the theoretical limit from my long distant MCSE days, but I'm sure in practise it is less.

 

[disinfo]

Yeah, check what the degradation is before and after the coupler I think 165m is the theoretical limit from my long distant MCSE days, but I'm sure in practise it is less.

Must be theoretical, def 90m permanent link or 100m channel according to TIA568B ISO11801 and EN50173

 

[EddieM]

I could well be incorrect, but anyway, the OP's cable length shouldn't be a problem. I'll dig out my old book !!

 

[fathertobe]

Thanks for all replies, Guys. Hope you can stay with me until I get to the bottom of this.

To answer the questions:
1 Set up is: Router > Coupler > Patch panel

2 Degradation: Well, single cable to router (e.g. from a computer in the house) = twice the speed of set up descibed above

Will swap couplers or get router closer to full external cable and report back.

Thanks again.

 

[disinfo]

A nice little utility for measuring speed between computers on a network is netcps

http://www.netchain.com/netcps/NetCPS.exe

Its a simple command line application.

You start it running on server mode on one computer (netcps -s)

Then on the client you want to test netcps computernameofserver

With its default settings it will transfer 100 Meg of data between the PC's and record the time taken.

 

[disinfo]

Another thing that occurs to me is that the cable you have used is stranded.

If you really have punched down to an IDC Patch panel, that could be causing you some problems as patch panels are designed for soild core cables only.