General home networking questions

BurningSkyline

BurningSkyline

New Member
I understand there is a lot of questions coming at you all but I would be very gracious of you all if you took the time to answer.

So the basement in my house is currently being redone. I'd like to incorporate some Ethernet keystone jacks into the walls near places where equipment will go. My first location will be behind the TV stand. How many keystones should I put back there? I for sure will have an xbox 360, and cable box but would like to have room to expand. Another place will be next to my computer. Should I only put one ethernet jack there?

Also, how should I run the wire? Should I run them from the keystone in the living room to another keystone near our modem/router? or just straight from the keystone to the router? The in-wall cable whether Cat5e or Cat6 will be the only in-wall ethernet in the house.

Should I Run Cat5e or Cat6 for a little bit of future proofing? Cat5e will not be maxed out considering our connection is 3mbps/864kbps from centurylink. (ick!)

Should we upgrade our hardware? Our modem/router combo is a Motorola 3347. Also, should I buy an old server cabinet and modify it to fit all of our equipment? I have some questions about home servers but I will be doing some research on those first.

-Ryan
 
If you have multiple components in one room, just run one ethernet cable to one jack and use a switch at that location. You want at least one jack in every room. Cat 5e will be cheaper to run and you won't get any benefit from running Cat 6.
 
Well the reason I want to use multiple keystone jacks is because they will be spread throughout the room. But like I said Cat6 will allow more future proofing wont it? Cat6 seems to be pretty cheap itself...
 
I'm just telling you its not gonna make a difference. You can put as many jacks in the room as you wish, but just remember. If you have more than 4 runs, you will need to use a switch anyway. I wouldn't get anything less than a 8 port switch, may have to move up to a 16 port switch, and put it at the main location where modem/router is at.
 
Okay I think I'm starting to catch your drift now. Rather than have three or four runs of cable just have one and a switch at the end. The thing about that is I'd rather have all the equipment centralized in one cabinet. If I were to put a switch at the end of that one run I'd have an 8 port switch with potentially 5 unused ports. although doing it that was uses 3-4x less wire.
 
Then you would get a 5 port switch at that location. But basically its a trade off between running more cable or having a switch at the end. But like I said before, you would need a switch near the modem/router anyway if you were to have more than 4 runs. A router only has 4 ports.
 
We'll see what the boss says, four or five runs is definitely much more expensive considering monoprice wants $85 for 1000ft of cat5.

What would you suggest for a supplier?
 
I'm seeing multiple kinds of Cat5e cable and have no idea what they mean.

Cat5e InOut, Riser, Plenum?
Click to expand...

The inout can be used for underground or be exposed to sunlight. The others are basically the same. The link below would be all you need.

The keystones can be a pain. A straight connector cable out of a wall plate would be easier to install and maintain. You should have each line run back to the router or switch. Less terminations is better for trouble shooting. If you run from a keystone to a keystone that adds another point that could be bad. If the runs are not that long you should consider getting regular cat5 ethernet cables off off ebay or somewhere as you can buy them in different lengths. Should be cheaper than buying a whole box of cat5 plus the work of putting connectors or keystones on. If you do need a keystone its just a matter of cutting one connector off and leaving the other to go to the router or switch.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-ft-Feet-...hernet_Cables_RJ_45_8P8C_&hash=item5d36e9a862

http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical...Id=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051#.UOwK2axtjyo
 
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I would definitely use CAT6, as it's about the same price as 5e, I wouldn't say it's future proof as CAT7 will be completely different, but it's still more than enough for what you need most likely.
 
dandy said:
The inout can be used for underground or be exposed to sunlight. The others are basically the same. The link below would be all you need.

The keystones can be a pain. A straight connector cable out of a wall plate would be easier to install and maintain. You should have each line run back to the router or switch. Less terminations is better for trouble shooting....
Click to expand...

By Coupler, Do you mean something along the lines of this?

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...d=1051903&p_id=7303&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

I would definitely use CAT6, as it's about the same price as 5e...
Click to expand...

I think I will just use CAT6 as I already have one 25ft cable and two 50ft cables.

So it sounds like I should just do one run through the wall and a switch at the location of the electronics? I'm not sure how many devices I could expect to see in an entertainment cabinet, Possibly 2-4? I'm going to guess a PS3, Xbox 360, HTPC, and one other device max?
 
By Coupler, Do you mean something along the lines of this?
Click to expand...
No. I mean some kind of wall plate like for a tv or phone that you can run the cable straight to the router or computer. These are nice and look good also.

http://www.amazon.com/DataComm-45-0...357873897&sr=8-1&keywords=tv+cable+wall+plate

The coupler would work but still adds another point that can go bad. Not that it would but again the least amount of connections the easier to maintain and troubleshoot.
Mounting a keystone jack at the standard heights of 12 and 16 inches is harder to work on. If the cable is brought up by itself you can inspect and check it right in your hand.
 
I would do that but I'm running these wires for at least 25-30ft maybe more up and down the walls so I'd rather just do something more permanent.
 
CAT6 will make no difference at those distances, Only real difference between Cat 6 and 5e is thicker outside rubber molding and that the twisted pairs are separated by a plastic splitter that runs through the middle of the cable.

The only benefit it will give you is gigabit speeds over longer runs such as 80-90m (which you really wouldnt want to do anyway as it leaves very little length for access connections between walljack and end device)

My advise is to run as many walljacks in as possible with direct connections back to one central location (usually governed by where your main internet line is) then buy a decent 16 or 24 port switch and label each connection (possibly a patch panel as well if you really want). This way all devices get 1gbp/s speeds (provided you purchase a gigabit switch) over your LOCAL area network and wont be bottle necked by a single uplink port back to main switching room. This is useful if you are looking into a home server as you want as much bandwidth as possible to the server and to your clients for streaming things like 1080p video
 
Speedydowt said:
CAT6 will make no difference at those distances, Only real difference between Cat 6 and 5e is thicker outside rubber molding and that the twisted pairs are separated by a plastic splitter that runs through the middle of the cable.

The only benefit it will give you is gigabit speeds over longer runs such as 80-90m (which you really wouldnt want to do anyway as it leaves very little length for access connections between walljack and end device)

My advise is to run as many walljacks in as possible with direct connections back to one central location (usually governed by where your main internet line is) then buy a decent 16 or 24 port switch and label each connection (possibly a patch panel as well if you really want). This way all devices get 1gbp/s speeds (provided you purchase a gigabit switch) over your LOCAL area network and wont be bottle necked by a single uplink port back to main switching room. This is useful if you are looking into a home server as you want as much bandwidth as possible to the server and to your clients for streaming things like 1080p video
Click to expand...
There's no reason to run CAT5E over CAT6 in any situation, cabling is cheap.
 
I have intentions on going to AVS forum and asking for some AV related stuff there, maybe not but I've been working on a rough sketchup model of this whole thing, would you all be interested in seeing this? I've got a dozen or so more things to add yet but It may help.
 
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