Networking question

[Firetoad]

To all,

I have found that his particular niche forum is a very technically competent and just a plain smart crowd: a great resource! enough brown-nosing I guess...

Anyway, I am having an issue with my home network. Here are the stat's for all of the network appliances:

- D-Link DI-524 Wireless B/G Router, My machines are all setup with Static DHCP assigned IP's

- Hardwired Machine: ECS K7S5A (old board but a workhorse!) with onboard SiS 900 NIC, 1.5 GB DDR RAM, Athlon XP 2400+, Windows XP Home

- Primary Wireless Machine: HP Laptop, AMD TK-57 Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, Built-in Wireless, Windows Vista Home Premium

I could toss out stats all day, but I don't think anymore is necessary.

Originally, the hardwired machine (acting more as a NAS and video capture server while serving some video editing functions) was connected to the router via a 6 foot factory made ethernet cable. These were both located in my basement. Wireless signal strength seemed to be OK. No major file transfer problems, etc. with this setup.

To the present, I got a wild one up the "you-know-what" and decided to rebuild the server as strictly a storage and tv capture machine. In doing so, I decided to move my broadband modem and router to my first floor where the laptop does most of the work for increased signal strength and for the desire to add a MediaMVP to the network (5 feet from the router). So, I decided to do the rebuild of the hardwired machine on my first floor to keep from having to sit in the basement for hours on end. While doing this, I used a 15' foot factory made ethernet cable to connect to the router. Everything with file transfers, internet downloads, etc. were fine.

After finishing the build, I placed the "server" style box back into my basement and made up a cable out of some Cat5 I purchased from Lowe's approximately 40' long. I hooked everything up and found that when initially connecting to the network, everything worked fine, but in short order, everything crawled to a halt. I could ping the machine from my laptop but started noticing packet loss and increased ping times. I assumed that I maybe goofed up a connector on one end of the cable, i.e. poor crimping, improper crimp, etc. So, I cut both ends, testing each one separately, and replaced. Same story! I then thought I was maybe getting some goofy interference from my cable routing path. So, I isolated the ether net cable, but still the problem remained. Tried different router lan ports, but no change. Router reboots produced the same problems. Checking some drivers and finding a few other problems, I reloaded windows, installed some older, known working drivers on the mobo and found that the problem still existed! So, I decided to bring the machine back upstairs and connect through the 15' cable I connected to earlier and everything worked as it should! :eek:

My thoughts are that the cable, somehow is just plain bad. Never ran across bad cable myself (bad terminations yes, but not bad cable itself). However, I am wondering if the problem is maybe the increased length of cable. If that is the case, is it the onboard NIC or the router having trouble with the distance.

So, my question/help request is: What are everyone's thoughts here? Cable, hardware? How would everyone go about testing the individual components without spending gobs on individual new equipment pieces (Besides, that is just "spraying and praying" to fix the problem, not really evaluating and solving)?

Thanks in advance and my apologies for the thesis-length post!

[flyswatta]

I don't think length is an issue - I'm doing gigbit over a 50' CAT5e cable and 100 Mb over a 50' CAT5e cable. I've run into an issue with a 'bad' cable before, I had to fiddle around with getting a part of the cable 'just so' or else it wouldn't work. The problem was that it would be fine for 6 months, then it would get bumped (wife cleaning behind computers, kids messing around, whatever) and would stop working, then I'd have to spend another 20 minutes fiddling with the cable. The only reason I didn't just toss it was because it was run into the wall, into the attic and down another wall. I eventually tossed the cable.

I found that Altex has nice, long cables with connectors that are reasonable in price (I think I paid around $20 each for the 50' CAT 5e cables.) There may be other places to get reasonably priced cables - I used to crimp my own cables, but since it doesn't really cost that much more to buy the pre-connected ones, I usually go that route.

[martint123]

Sorry about this question, but it has to be asked as it has been done before and has similar symptoms.
Did you wire up the cable using the proper colours (pairs). There are 3 separate pairs of twisted wires in the cable.

[HarryH3]

Check out http://www.deepsurplus.com/ They have awesome prices on cables (and other home wiring stuff as well!) I wired Ethernet to my whole house with their stuff and was VERY happy with the quality of the parts that I received.

[pastro]

It does sound like the cable is not working very well. Don't know why it would get worse, but possibly as the LAN tries to adapt its equalizer to the cable it does a bad job.
I have had trouble in the past with the length of the wires that are untwisted as they go into the connector. That needs to be as short as possible.
I only buy the connectors now that you can push the wire through and then cutoff the excess. Those work great but are more expensive.

[Firetoad]

Thanks for the help all! Sounds like the concensus is that it is the cabling. Thought so, but wanted some confirmation from others with some experience.

martint123,

As far as the wiring pattern, although I am pretty careful with my wiring, I double and triple checked the patterns at the plugs to make certain that the wiring patterns matched and they did with both sets of plugs.

[martint123]

It is more than both ends matching that needs attention. The RX and TX pins need to be on individual pairs. Something like:- http://www.solwiseforum.co.uk/downloads/...wiring.pdf

[Firetoad]

After you practically had to hit me over the head with it, I realize my issue now martinit123! Man, I feel like a moron! I do have the pairing messed up. That is what I get for thinking I can do it after a number of years without reading the directions as a refresher. I always say that I know just enough to be dangerous.

From quick research... The pairs are cross-talking and not balanced. As I start trying to push heavy data across the network, it falls in on itself from all the self-generated noise. Correct?

Martinit123 has brought the light and I have seen it. I will reterminate this evening after work and report back my findings. Thanks for the help all and sorry for being an idiot!

[martint123]

As I remember it, the TX pair one goes positive and the other negative. when this goes to a pair of twisted wires the signal tends to keep to itself. If one of the TX pair is twisted round one of its RX wires then it will induce a signal into it, interfering with what should be coming from the far end.
Don't worry, it's easily done.

[pastro]

After you practically had to hit me over the head with it, I realize my issue now martinit123! Man, I feel like a moron! I do have the pairing messed up. That is what I get for thinking I can do it after a number of years without reading the directions as a refresher. I always say that I know just enough to be dangerous.

From quick research... The pairs are cross-talking and not balanced. As I start trying to push heavy data across the network, it falls in on itself from all the self-generated noise. Correct?

Martinit123 has brought the light and I have seen it. I will reterminate this evening after work and report back my findings. Thanks for the help all and sorry for being an idiot!

There are two ways to hook up ethernet, chose either type A or type B. It doesn't make a difference which one you use.
Here is an article on wikipedia on the cabling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable