How do I get ethernet working in my house?

youcancallmeal

I moved into a new build house in a small estate about 6 years ago. The house seems like it was wired for ethernet as there is several rj45 ports in the walls. There is a junction box in the utility room but it is a mess of wires(see pic below). I remember asking the electrician who came to fix some snags about the ethernet, he did some quick testing with a cable tester and said he couldn't find any connection from the port in the wall to the junction box. He didn't seem to know a lot about cat5/ethernet and was in a rush to leave so I said it's fine I'll look into it another time. I haven't really thought about it since then but now I want to install a wifi mesh system with ethernet backhaul. I've tried plugging a cat 5 cable from my router to a port in the wall and then in another room I have a cat 5 cable going from a port in the wall into a PC. I know the cables work as I've tested them but the PC isn't picking up any internet

Do I need to get an electrician in to help figure this out? Maybe a stupid question but does there need to a switch of some sort for the cat 5 that goes into the box in the utility room to connect it all up?

Do you have an Internet Service Provider, eg, Virgin, Eir etc?

The top connector I see is a BNC Male connector. Before spending money on an electrician, I would buy this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Connector-Adapters-Monitoring-Equipment-Peripheral/dp/B092D7SCGH/ref=asc_df_B092D7SCGH/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=499131903078&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7048820021779554183&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=20480&hvtargid=pla-1262473358369&psc=1

a BNC Female to Male Ethernet adapter. Then plug it into the back of your Broadband router, nowadays they nearly all have a 4-port switch in the back. Then plug your laptop or PC, into one of the ethernet sockets, and see can you ping your router.

Let us know how you get on.

youcancallmeal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120286902#Comment_120286902

Yes virgin, so when I testing it was a cable from the virgin router into the rj45 in the wall and then in another room a cable from rj45 port into a pc or tv, no internet to the connect device. If I run a cable directly from the router into a tv for example it works fine.

MarkR

I can see a few unterminated ethernet cables.

I would suspect that your ethernet ports all end up here. They're basically dead ends right now. You could get them all terminated, and attach them to an eight port switch where the wires are now, and then they should all be networked

The Continental Op

I count at least 5 Cat5 (or 6?) ethernet cables and at least 7 coax cables. The coax cables suggest to me that means the house is wired for CCTV cameras.

So some internal rooms probably have a run of the Cat5 cable back to that box and the eves of the house and maybe backdoor and front door may have a coax cable nearby.

Coax cables might also include a cable for a satellite dish/TV antenna.

First thing to do is find the other ends of those cables and make diagram of what you have.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120286927#Comment_120286927

Its not, its an F connector and will be TV related. I can guarantee you no house wired for ethernet 6, or 16, or probably even 26 years ago will be using BNC/thin ethernet!

OP - cancel the order for this if you've ordered it; it is utterly useless here.

All the white/cream-ish cables are CAT5/6 ethernet and unterminated; these will be what go to the RJ45 sockets in the other rooms.

My Virgin router setup, Ethernet, tv, landline phone.

My setup working 100% even with this piece of antiquity

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/set-up-broadband

It’s hard to see exactly what you have amid that tangle of cables.

youcancallmeal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120286942#Comment_120286942

Thanks for all the replies. This is my thinking as well. I'm going to get an 8 port switch and a RJ45 toolkit like this and see if I can get them working myself. Might have to drill a hole in the side of the junction box because I don't think a switch will fit in there with all those cables. The BNC/Coax cables are TV only I'm sure, there are 2 endpoints downstairs for the kitchen and sitting room. Upstairs each bedroom has a blank wall plate and behind it there is what looks like unterminated cat 5/6 and coax cable(See pic below). Don't really have any interest in the coax cable so will just buy some of these so I can setup an access point upstairs as well. The more I think about it I don't really need a mesh system if I can get the ethernet up and running, I can just use much cheaper access points backed by the ethernet.

eggy81

Is the cable feeding your router a cat 6 or a fibre? Is it coming from outside the house or where? I’d be thinking of using the nearest Ethernet port to my router to extend the incoming feed to the utility room and then wall mount my router beside that junction box allowing you to use those cables to send Ethernet to various rooms. I don’t think it’ll be possible if it’s a fibre cable feeding the router. May be wrong though.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120287378#Comment_120287378

That toolkit is fine for DIY, a friend bought one and I've used it a couple of times when I've not had my own gear with me. You seem to have a good idea of whats going on. Suggest you practice a few Cat5 RJ45 plug terminations before you start on those coming out of the wall as you don't want to waste any cable length by cutting ends off if you get it wrong. You can make a RJ45 termination with just a few cm of exposed cable but its better to strip back at least 5cm (or more) as it makes it a whole lot easier to sort out the cable colours in your hand before cutting them to the correct length for the RJ45 plug. Use an old patch cable to practice on, cut one end off and make a new termination then test it.

Another thing to think about is Power Over Ethernet PoE. If you are putting more than a couple of WiFi Access Points (AP) on the end of those ethernet cable then a Gigabit PoE switch will save having to find a spare plug socket at the AP end. Obviously you then need to get AP's that will use the PoE. This is the sort of thing I've used and works well enough.

The Continental Op

I don't really need a mesh system if I can get the ethernet up and running, I can just use much cheaper access points backed by the ethernet.

I wouldn't say AP's are much cheaper than a mesh system if you do it properly. You can be really cheap and use old WiFi routers as AP's but I've installed a good few AP's and found the more expensive ones far more reliable and effective. Personally I like TP-Link AC1350's which are around €80 each but you can spend a lot more.

Just looking now for someone I'm doing some similar work for and spotted this which might also suit in your situation (installation guide https://static.tp-link.com/upload/manual/2022/202208/20220803/7106509678_EAP650-Wall(EU)%201.0_IG.pdf). btw you don't need any of the cloud installation stuff if you manually configure each unit.

youcancallmeal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120289713#Comment_120289713

That's a great idea actually thanks

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120289713#Comment_120289713

Perhaps they are but I always strip back a good 5cm or more of cable and then you can easily sort out the individual colours between thumb and forefinger. Once you are 100% sure everything is right then you finally cut the cables to length and fit then straight into an RJ45 plug before they have a chance to move around.

It does get unnecessarily fiddly if the cables are really short. Always good to have at least 20cm to play with.

Plenty of tutorials on youtube first example I puled up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lullzS740wI

The Continental Op

I've never used them but these have to be the easiest RJ45 plugs to put on https://www.amazon.co.uk/LEENUE-Cat5e-Connectors-Through-Stranded/dp/B092VN7GJB

Just push the cables straight through check the colour coding is in the right order then trim and crimp.

youcancallmeal

So my order arrived at the weekend and I got to wiring it up. I thought I had ordered keystone jacks but obviously didn't read the listing closely enough, they are female to female couplers. Not a big problem though as the network tool kit came with some rj45 pass through connectors. I checked the existing rj45 wall plates to figure out whether they are t568a or b. It would appear they are b so I terminated all the junction box cat5e cables with the pass through connectors in the t568b configuration. I got the cable tester and tested a few cables to make sure it's working first. Then I plugged a cat5e patch cable(also wired in t568b) into a wall plate and connected one end of the cable tester. I went back to the junction box and went though every cable but the tester doesn't seem to be picking up any kind of connection. 

Even if I made a mistake with one or more of the pass through connectors or the wall plate wasn't wired correctly would the tester still light up but not be in sync? If the cable in the wall is really long does that effect the tester in some way, like lights will be really faint or it will take 10 seconds for it to start working. I'm at a loss here. Only other thing I can think of is the wall plate keystones aren't punched down correctly

Example of one of the rj45 pass throughs before I crimped it

One of the wall plates, green into the number 6 channel tells me it's t568b

youcancallmeal

Actually I think I did wire up the pass through connectors incorrectly. The order of the wires is correct but it's reversed. When looking at it from the bottom of the connector(the side without the securing clip) it should be white-orange, orange, white-green etc. Still thought the tester would work but just be out of sync

The Continental Op

OK so only taking a quick look between other work but I know my RJ45 plugs didn't look like that when I did a couple at the weekend. The cables in the first picture are in the wrong order or put it another way the plug (or cable) is upside down. With the tab away from you (at the back of the connector) you start with the orange pair and end with the brown pair. The blue pair is always in the middle and the green goes either side of it. If you turn the last pic I posted through 90 degrees you will see exactly what I mean. btw use t568b for everything.

youcancallmeal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120320103#Comment_120320103

I've made some progress, I removed the incorrectly wired pass through connectors and did them properly. Using the tester I have now identified the cat5e cables in the junction box which terminate at wall plates in the kitchen and 2 bedrooms upstairs. I can't find which cables connect to the double socket in the living room though(that's the second pic above), I tested all 10 cables in the junction box. Only thing I can think of is perhaps the wires in the wall plate haven't been punched down correctly although it looks like the wires are in the right place for t568b. I don't have much cable to work with if I wanted to buy a new double socket wall plate and do it again myself, the one that's there was done by the electrician who wired up the house originally

dam099

Would be a bit unlucky to have 2 beside each other not wired correctly if he got the other ones right.

Not a an expert but I wonder would it be possible to use a multimeter and a low power source to check if electricity is passing through them to make sure they are at least physically going back there, even if not wired in the right order?

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120321891#Comment_120321891

Faceplate looks OK to me. How are you testing the cables. I'd be putting a tone on one end and then seeing which cable at the other "buzzes". If you are just terminating each end and checking with a cable tester provided one pair is connected correctly even a cheap tester will see it. A better tester will try all combinations and tell you what pin is connected to what pin.

What I'd do now is sit down and think why someone would want two cables in the sitting room and where they might want the runs to go? Are those terminations near a phone line? Just wondering if they were put in for a phone line internet connection? If you have or had a landline can you find the run and see if its got an unidentified ethernet cable anywhere near it.

However a second look at the faceplate makes me think there is no harm in punching it down again. It wasn't done by someone that does a lot of network cabling. Ideally the cable pairs should retain their twist as far as possible before being punched down. The ends are mangled instead of being cut cleaning close to the punch down block and the insulation is cut back a bit far, I'd have it sleeved right up to the end of the punch down block. You could just repunch down each individual connection in case the last guy tried poking them in with a screwdriver.

Edit> Don't get to worried about it being tidy with pairs twisted right up to the punch down block because I've seen far worse test out as perfect.

youcancallmeal

Okay so I tried punch down tool on the existing keystones, no effect. I even cut one of them out and wired it into a pass through connector, still nothing. I double checked all the pass through connectors at the junction box I crimped earlier, couldn't see any issues. Feel really stuck now, might just have to get an electrician out. I need at least one of these 2 connections to work as the modem is here and it will need to go back to the junction box to connect to the switch.

There's a random fuse switch nearby the sockets but turning it off or on doesn't seem to have any effect on anything nearby including the power sockets, I checked the fuse in it is working and it is.

The Continental Op

Some other thoughts on this?

How many cables do you have left from your first picture that you are still looking for where the other end is?

Any work done on the house recently or since that cabling that could have cut those two cables?

Have you checked other places like in the roof and under stairs etc for cable runs and ends of cables?

Are there two rooms that have or could have large screen TV's or a projector?

Reason I'm asking is that whoever put that cabling in might have had something specific in mind?

Examples which I have seen would be ..... pair of ethernet cables for long distance HDMI cable - sending picture from one room to a projector in another, putting access point in roof, putting router in roof, link to outside shed/garage/man cave, cat5 installed but some runs used for phone, cat5 put in for future automatic gates...

youcancallmeal

I get what you mean and that's why I checked the eircom box on the side of the house outside which is almost exactly on the other side of the wall where the double socket is in the living room. There are 2 cables there going into the house, one is definitely a cat cable, don't recognise the other one.

I did find another wall plate in the hallway. It is a cat cable but only the blue wires were connected into some sort of device, maybe phone related but the face plate is an RJ45 socket and not RJ11? Anyway I drilled a small hole from that back box into the living room and fed the cable through it. I put a connector on it and found the end point in the junction box using the tester. Luckily it's behind a couch that's never going to move so I'll just connect one of those female to female keystones and feed another cable along the skirting board to where the router is. It's not ideal but best I can do considering those 2 cables in the double socket are not working. My guess is they were severed somewhere after the electrics were done and other people were still working on the house build.

Also this is a diagram I've made of how I understand the ethernet wiring

The Continental Op

When you are wiring Cat cable for phones you always start by using the Blue pair which in most cases is all you need.

So I would suspect one of the front room pair may go to that outside box for a phone line?

The black cable in the outside box is probably Cat 5 external grade cable so may run to a box at the boarder of the property often the gate or a wall.

youcancallmeal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120324793#Comment_120324793

Mystery mostly solved and it seems I drilled a hole in the wall for nothing. Oh well it's easily fixed plasterboard thankfully. You got me thinking that the double socket cables must be connected to somewhere other than the junction box. So the double socket is down near floor level along with coax and power sockets. There are HDMI cables already installed in a run from the coax sockets to a couple of blank wall plates about 1.5m above. The idea being you can wall mount a tv and not have any visible wires which is what I've done. It's really awkward to unscrew the wall plates behind the tv and taking the tv down is a lot of hassle so I just laboriously unscrewed one of them a few days ago to check if there was anything in there and it was empty. Then it occurred to me just now I never checked the other one, I had assumed it was empty as well so I hadn't bothered. Low and behold 4 cat cables sitting there mocking my stupidity! I haven't tested them yet but I assume 2 of them go back to the junction box and 2 go down to the lower double socket. 

My brain is melted trying to figure all this out but am I right in thinking this was a bad way for the electrician to wire them, wouldn't it have made more sense to have the lower socket with the 4 cables and the upper with 2 because why would you need 2 ethernet connections halfway up a wall at TV height!?

Anyway I'm thinking if I am right that 2 go back to the junction box then I can connect one to a wall plate single socket for the tv and terminate the other one and use a female to female connector to connect it down to the lower socket for the router

The Continental Op

Well done, I've done this for people and was back on a similar job a couple of weekends back and even with my previous documentation it took a little bit of sorting out.

Which leads me on to my rant of the day..... Why the $%$%$ do electricians never label the cables. It takes very little time and saves a load of effort in the future. Yeh I see marks on the ends of cables but after plasterers, painters and snaggers have been at new builds its often impossible to make out their original meaning. The result is you have to do what the OP had to do and work it all out for yourself.

If you can label the end of every cable - I print out strips on a label printer with a number for each end. I normally print the number about 4 times then put the label around the cable and stick it to itself. Also print out and add the numbers to your plan and jam it in near where all the cables terminate. I normally do a few copies and store them in a zip lock bag. I know you'll have it on you computer but will you still have it in say 5 years time if you decide to make some changes.

youcancallmeal

All up and running now. TP-Link mesh wifi set up with an ethernet backhaul so the satellite nodes are now almost identical speeds to the base node which is connected to the Virgin router. One thing I wasn't expecting is beside one of my satellite mesh routers the wifi speed about the same as a laptop I have connected via ethernet cable. It's Virgin 500Mbp/s so maybe if I had Gigabit broadband I'd see the benefit more on a ethernet connected device?

Phone

Laptop

Anyway thanks again everyone who advised. It was an interesting little project and glad I didn't just ring an electrician.

theintern

Fair play. Nicely set up. Weird wiring to the back of the TV alright.

I have no idea why electricians don't label these when they pull them, when they're not going to terminate them and they know someone will need to go hunting.

Going through the same fun myself at the moment with 16 cables all pulled to the attic.

• All wall keystones were wired in A, which I realised after patching down 3/4 cables. I assumed they were B (which is vastly vastly more common)
• Three keystones had at least one broken wire. So needed to be pulled from the wall and re patched. This is very frustrating since you keep repatching and terminating on your end in case you were the one that made the mistake.
• One cable was missing, after some hunting it was found hidden underneath the attic insulation.

Nearly there but it seems to take ages!

Nelbert

For most sparks it's not the norm so they aren't familiar with it. They are used to pulling a light circuit from the board then switching individual circuits off that single pull. The end to end pulls are alien to them.

Pulled all the network cable myself on refurb to avoid exactly these scenarios.... Labelled everything multiple times on both ends of each cable run.

bk

"Which leads me on to my rant of the day..... Why the $%$%$ do electricians never label the cables. It takes very little time and saves a load of effort in the future. Yeh I see marks on the ends of cables but after plasterers, painters and snaggers have been at new builds its often impossible to make out their original meaning. The result is you have to do what the OP had to do and work it all out for yourself."

When I first moved into my place, I was at first pleased to see a laminated sheet in the inside door of the fuse box which labelled which circuits each of the trips switches controlled.

Being the cautious type, I double checked each one and was horrified to discover that they were completely mislabelled and all mixed up. You could kill someone with tat unprofessional nonsense!

When you think about it, it is pretty mad that you can spend hundreds of thousands on a new home and you don't even get a manual for it! A €2 cable from AliExpress even comes with a manual.

In many mainland European countries, you actually get a big manual when you buy a new home, which has detailed plans of the whole home, including location of all wiring, plumbing, stopcocks, etc.

There is a lot we can learn from mainland Europe.

BTW great job OP on figuring out that wiring.