Need Cat 6 wiring help.

[Jims5543]

I have found all kinds of info to make cables but nothing on how to wire up a wall socket.

Can someone help me out and point me to somewhere I can read up and understand what to do?

[masraum]

You may want to check the wall sockets that they sell at Home Depot, etc... Lots of times the part that gets the wires (on the back, inside the wall) will have a color coding cap or color codes molded into the plastic itself.

[masraum]

here the top of the page is the wire, and the bottom of the page is the female

http://www.aptcommunications.com/ncode.htm

[HardDrive]

To get a good connection, there are to main 'gotchas'.

First, make sure that you untwist as little wire as possible when making the socket. The twists in the wire provide protection from interference.

Second, make sure the wires are punched down into the grooves all the way. In a pinch I have done this with a pocket knife, but it is much easier to do this with the proper tool, a 'punch down' tool. Unfortunately, these cost $40+, and they really have no purpose other than making sockets.

Last note: lights on the network cards does not mean you have a good connection.

[MysticLlama]

IF you get Leviton terminals for the wall jacks, they often come with a plastic punch down tool in the box of 10 jacks. Plenty good for small amounts of work, and I actually find the little tool to be easier than my real punch when just doing a little jack.

Be sure you look up the complete wiring standard, I'd just quote it off the top of my head, but it's been a while and I wouldn't want to trip you up in case of a dyslexic moment.

Use 568B for both ends.

CAT5e and 6 both support 1000BT if installed correctly, 5e is a little easier to fish and work with because it doesn't have the center plastic "x" beam to separate the pairs more.

To get a good punch as close to the twists as possible, don't untwist it, but loosen it enough to pop the split between the wires over the divider on the jack, leaving both sides twisted, then just cut off the excess.

It's pretty easy once you do the first couple of them, just be real sure to get good solid connections, intermittant network issues are no fun to troubleshoot.

Also, I'd recommend using bought pre-made cables for going from jack -> device, as making those cables is far easier to screw up than the jacks.

[masraum]

Yep, what they said. The little plastic punch down tools that come with the jacks (I think Home Depot sells Leviton) work great. Leave a bit of extra cable. If you have a problem with the cables and you are pretty certain that it's not in the PC then it's easier to just reterminate the ends. If you are careful about it you should be able to get better than 95% and probably 100% success on the cabling. Making the cables is harder, but still not hard. I did work with some contractors once that were lucky to hit 60% on making cables.

[DByers]

Here is the link to the Leviton Learning Center.
LLC

Lots of good info. Take your time and lay out everything on paper before you begin to pull wire. Cat 6 is overkill for residential use and even most small commercial applications. Cat 5e has more then enough head room for most applications if installed correctly. Like others have said, buy the premade tails in the lengths you need to go from blocks to switch and from wall to computer. A proper 110 punch tool is nice and costs a few $. If you plan on doing this more then once, buy one. The plastic dish (jack holder) will also save your palm.

[Jims5543]

This is for my office and we need the Cat 6. When we switched from Cat 5 to 6 a year ago our Cadd files loaded up noticably faster. We moved to a new office and ran all the cat 6 through the walls we need now we are going back and adding wall plates to the wires.

Right now we are running wireless but it is slow. I prefer the Cat 6 setup.

Thanks for all the help guys. I bragged to my co-workers that the Porsche guys would know.