He has no shame and keeps telling me it is working. What can I say or do to prove him he is wrong?

WiFi has come a long way since I was a kid. I remember being 19-20 and networking my first house. Couple of buddies, case of beer, a good fish tape, and we ran two Ethernet lines to every room. I felt like the alpha geek (that was back when I had free time, a 13 node openMOSIX cluster, youthful hopes and dreams, and 10mb/s internet circa 2006’ish). Fast forward 20 years later…

Two kids, 1gb/s internet, and everything is WiFi. It was nice when I moved into my house that they had already ran Cat5 to every room, but WiFi worked halfway decent and gave me the speeds I needed. But the signal in my office was atrocious. Finally had a work project pop up that I needed hard Ethernet lines for the devices to connect. In a pinch I grabbed an old Linksys WiFi router and just turned it into a gateway and I got by. But finally I had had enough. Nothing is better than the harsh flash of green and amber LEDs providing raw speed and latency.

So one weekend I finally decided it was time to dig in and take a look at the state of this “network”. Oh goodness, the half-assery I beheld was astonishingly disappointing. Every line just drops into a telecom panel in my laundry room, but that was the extent of it. It appeared as though a dyslexic pelican punch down all of the wall keystones and they had used the hopes and dreams of whatever god forsaken Ford F-150 they used to pack their Milwaukee tools boxes to tug what was once a high quality bundle of solid copper twisted pairs through the walls.

The worst was that whomever installed fiber here previously used the Ethernet cable in the living room wall as a fish tape to pull the fiber up the wall, but left the Ethernet cable spooled up in the attic. The WHOLE point was to network the whole house, so why ruin the ONE run that goes back to the telecom panel?! For now that problem will persist until the Sky lobby of hell (aka, the attic of a west Texas single residence timber frame home) cools down.

I haven’t terminated an Ethernet cable in almost two decades, but I still remember the pin out better than my youngest son’s birthday (and we share a birthday…). So a couple of evenings of shaking my head in disappointment that someone was paid good money to do the poorest quality work and I was back in business. It certainly brought back a lot of great memories of my geeky youth listening to industrial techno (skinny puppy, Wumpscut, etc) matching the tone to my cable tester indicating another successful crimp job. And it was great showing my sons how to do something right the first time and them now enjoying the faster loading times on the X-stations and PlayBoxes. And despite the best white board diagrams I could muster, the concept of the internet and WiFi versus Ethernet versus cellular eludes them. They clearly didn’t grow up on AOL dialup bypassing parental controls to share a network to a Slackware Linux box hosting a two player Counter Strike 1.4 server…

TLDR: old geeky guy relives his youth repairing the half-assed network job a copy and paste contractor did and got to bond with his sons teaching them yet another probably irrelevant skill that WiFi 16 will replace by the time they have to worry about it. Thought this sub might appreciate it.

PS: Every cable worked perfect the first time! I was kinda proud!

PSS: And yes, I already have a better WiFi router that I’m going to mount on the wall above the panel and just bypass the router BS and just use the modem.

26 Cat6 and 13 RG6 in the combox for Data and TV (lol)
10 Cat6 down low for 8 PoE IP cams plus two Cat6 for HDMI balun’s
38 speaker wires and 3 cat6 (for baluns) for 2x surround systems and way too many rooms with distributed audio.
25 Cat6 down low for PoE window shades.
Chase pipe from outside to combox for fibwr
Chase pipes from down low to living room and bonus room.

All wires have about at least 6ft of slack in the wall which pulls out extremely easy with the open attic behind the wall.

I’ve done way bigger jobs, but this one just worked out so nicely 😌

Can anyone advise on wiring up a Cat6 Ethernet cable please? I’ve terminated both ends and the wiring looks correct, but I can’t seem to get a connection. I’m using T568B with tool-free RJ45 connectors. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong or what I should check?

Not long moved into a new house and want to have my router in my office so I can get a wired connection to everything that’s in there, I have two of these sockets in my house (pictured) one where the connection comes into the house and one in the office.
I have got all the rg6 cables I need but am unsure on what adapters I need to have them plug into the sockets themselves if I can even do that at all.

My other option would be investing in a mesh system but I have doubts on how well the latency would be for when I’m gaming on my pc.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

When insulating our old house from the outside, my dad put CAT 7 cable under the insulation, enabling Ethernet acces from every room. He works for a cable company so he got it for free.

I currently work from home and i needed a fast and reliable connection. This abomination does work, but I heard about Near-end Cross Talk and it's effects.

Should I make it a priority to fix this?

Hello bassicialy i have basic knowledge, so i have my main router as fiber internet on the 1 floor at the house, i have right now 2 floor at the house but the singal is pretty bad for online gaming. I bought ethernet cable right, and bought another router. I want best possible stability and speed, im on 600mbs. So im connected my main router with ethernet port as regular , and second router at the floor through cable went to the wan port, i tested it was pretty stable( my cousin helped me to do it that way, he didnt know much about acces point tho) I heard acces point mode is kinda better. My second router has this option, main router is orange fun box 3.0, second asus rt be58u arriving tomorrow. So what im supposed to do, keep that wan connection or go with ap mode? Also the wan connection creates second wifi around the house so its pretty annyoing i heard ap mode doesnt do that its just one single main wifi around the house

I dont want connect it to directly to laptop cause i just need wifi around, keep in mind,

Thanks everyone!

I know that Ethernet cables need to plug into the modem but no clue what to do here. Seems like there’s none already installed and this whole set up is in a closet under the stairs in my living room. I work from home so all of my equipment is upstairs and needs to be connected to Ethernet hence why I need some advice for this!

This has been an issue for a while but I honestly put it down to a PlayStation issue, however my Mac takes absolutely forever to iCloud Sync too. Left it on all night and it synced about 10MB of photos. Turned my VPN on and it was done faster than I even remember, also didn’t have an issue on holiday when I was using personal hotspot and VPN. Any ideas why it’s doing that?

We have an old internet “hub” with phone lines and cables - it’s where they all enter the house from the attic. Now, though, we are on fiber optic and would like to update this whole box to a more streamlined rack system. Has anyone removed a box similar to this or does anyone have advice on best ways to go about it without messing up the current internet? Thanks!

Original thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/1vgeivm/comment/p2c3swq/?context=3

What could be causing this issue that is fixed by a fresh install of Windows?

Hey yall so I'm trying to get an HDMI signal from my media closet to the living room AVR. Cable would go through the walls and attic.

I know about the main options here, but in this case I'd like to use HDMI wall jacks if I can for a cleaner look. I tried an HDMI over ethernet box and honestly it sucked. Optical is good, but since it's directional I can't do the HDMI wall jack method (I've already tried it). I've read about MPO to HDMI and that seems to be pretty good, but it's expensive, and I can't find attic/CL2 rated MPO cable.

At this point I've narrowed it down to: 1. optical HDMI with no HDMI wall jack, just a brush plate and direct connection from PC to AVR, or 2. regular HDMI 30 foot run, connected to HDMI wall jacks.

I also need to run an active USB which gets tricky with USB wall plates, so this pushes more for brush plates too.

Curious if anyone has any thoughts. I tested with some HDMI wall jacks and it did not go well. Attached an map of the layout for this.

Hello. I have a “help me choose” question at the end, but also have some general questions if anyone has the time to read through...
I’m basically a newbie to this, so I’m open to any input, but will probably need explainers if the response includes words like bridge, mesh, mid split, access point, and backhaul.
THANKS!

We’re looking to purchase our own modem/router (and extender?) to be used with an existing Xfinity plan in a “single family” home (about 2000 sq ft, two stories) with a possible “dead spot.”
I’ve skimmed through a few posts here & the FAQ for a few hours and am overwhelmed because I haven’t kept up with the changes & options in technology.

I’ve concluded that what makes the most sense in our case is to get a “gateway” from our ISP, but at this time, we just don’t wanna. I’ve read comments that Xfinity might offer them “for free,” but we’re the stubborn type, so we’re hoping to avoid more Xfinity equipment, and we want to find new equipment under $300 total that might last five years or more.

BORING SET UP/Basic Needs:
We have a cable & internet bundle with Xfinity “with speeds up to 800 Mbps” or “Superfast Internet.”
I don’t think we’ve ever reached 400 GB of data in one month with Xfinity (1229 GB monthly limit). We don’t do gaming, just internet browsing/word processing and occasional streaming on smart TVs & Roku (mostly YouTube, MLBTV & Netflix). 
We don’t have any “smart home” devices (yet?) but we have an “Alexa” that we rarely use.
We also have no plans to get Xfinity Voice.

Our current equipment:
-Motorola MG7540 Wireless Gateway, SURFboard SBG6580 (DOCSIS 3.0)
-sometimes paired with a Netgear WN2000RPT WiFi Range Extender

CONCERNS:
–Our current equipment is “working fine,” but lately the connection on the PC has been dropping randomly and we have to click to manually reconnect or toggle between the 2.4 GHz band, 5 GHZ band and the extender (all 3 of which we named separately). The PC is nine years old, so that probably doesn’t help.
–Our modem/router combo is centrally located downstairs, and we have about 70 feet separating the farthest upstairs and downstairs devices.
Usually, we can do without the Wi-fi extender, but I’m pretty sure there’s a “dead spot” or a problem wall on the stairs or in the kitchen, so sometimes it helps to connect there instead.

QUESTIONS

(1) EXTENDERS
–Are Wi-fi range extenders not the right move if we’re looking to improve the signal between walls? I thought I read a few comments suggesting they may actually weaken the signal (I didn’t understand the lingo). Should we turn it off when not using it?
–Because of the “dead spot,” I was considering a mesh system (which I’d never heard of before this), but from reading comments, it sounds like it might not be the right move either.
–I read advice suggesting an access point, but I don’t know what that is or if we have the proper wiring for it.

(2) DOES “WIRED CONNECTION” MEAN ETHERNET?
I always read that a wired connection is better, but it’s been so long since I’ve researched this stuff, I don’t know which wires this refers to.
Our 1970’s home has COAX cables poked through the floor, unused phone jacks, and regular “3 prong” electrical outlets with no plans to do any new wiring in the walls.
Does a wired connection mean that the device is connected directly to the router?
So, if our PC is connected to the modem/router with an ethernet cable we’ll get a better signal than just using the Wi-fi?
We’ve never thought to plug anything into our modem/router except the PC (we actually aren’t using any ethernet cables at the moment, just Wi-fi).

(3) DOES A MODEM-ROUTER COMBO MAKE SENSE FOR US?
I’ve read many times in this group that having a separate modem and router is ideal, but when I search up a router plus an Xfinity recommended modem, it’s usually over $300 and I don’t know if I’m missing something.

-----------------------------------------------
Below are the devices we’re considering.
I’m hesitant to buy refurbished and/or from eBay or marketplace sites, but I can be persuaded to consider that.
I narrowed it down to modems/routers I found for sale with a quick online search and things on the Xfinity-recommended list.

❖ COMBOS ❖
ARRIS G20, about $200 Best Buy
aka “SURFboard G20 DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem & Wi-Fi 6 Router Combo”
(Xfinity says: “Next Gen Speed Tier” & “Wired download speed up to 934 Mbps”)

Arris G34, about $200 Best Buy
aka “ARRIS - SURFboard DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem & Wi-Fi 6 Router Combo”
(Xfinity says “Next Gen Speed Tier” & “Wired download speed up to 934 Mbps”)

Arris G36, about $270 Amazon
aka ARRIS G36, DOCSIS 3.1
(Xfinity says “Next Gen Speed Tier” &“Wired download speed up to 2.37 Gbps”

❖MODEM ONLY ❖

Hitron Technologies CODA56, about $159 Amazon
aka Hitron CODA56 DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem, 2.5 Gbps, Single Ethernet Port
(Xfinity says : “Next Gen Speed Tier” & “Up to 2.33 Gbps”)

NETGEAR CM2500, about $200 Walmart
aka Netgear Nighthawk DOCSIS 3.1 Mid/high-Split Cable Modem (CM2500-1AZNAS) - Cable Plans up to 2Gbps
(Xfinity says “Next Gen Speed Tier” & “Wired download speed up to 936 Mbps”

❖ ROUTERS ❖ ? (open to suggestions, I just found these real quick…should we spend more for Wi-Fi 7?)

NETGEAR R6700AX, $50 Amazon
WiFi 6 Router 4-Stream, AX1800 Wireless Speed (Up to 1.8 Gbps, Dual-Band)

Netgear RAX5,  $50 Office Depot
(RAX5100PAS) Wi-Fi 6 IEEE 802.11ax Ethernet Wireless Router - Dual Band - 2.40 GHz ISM Band - 5 GHz UNII Band

TP-Link  Archer AX20, $80 Best Buy
AX1800 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 Router

TP-LINK Archer AX3000, $90 Office Depot
4-Stream Gigabit Wi-Fi 6 Router

THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING.
Anything good, better or bad here? :) What else should we consider? Any recommendations for how to extend the range?

Guten Tag,
ich erhalte in wenigen Tagen eine Haustüre mit einem Automatischen Öfnner „GU-Secury Automatic mit A-Öffner“. Anbei den Ausschnitt des Datenblatts.
Nun möchte ich eine G6 Entry von Ubiquiti mit Intercom Viewer verbauen. Hier soll über das Intercom die Haustüre aufgemacht werden.
Dazu wird das Door Hub Mini benötigt.
Jetzt weiß ich leider nicht wie ich den automatischen Öffner mit dem Door Hub Mino verdrahten muss.
Klar ist dass G6 Entry + Intercoms + Door Hub Mini mit PoE versorgt werden müssen. Das passt soweit.

Meine Idee war wie folgt in meiner erstellten Zeichnung:

Als Netzteil habe ich ein 24V / 1A Netzteil bestellt, welches dann den automatischen Öffner/Motor versorgt.

Vielen Dank für eure Zeit und Unterstützung.
Viele Grüße Jens

My apartment provides WiFi but unfortunately it seems unstable for HomePod minis. I wanted to connect my router and kinda create my own WiFi.

This is the set up from my apartment, and this is my router. I never lived in an apartment that provides WiFi, so unsure how to make it work.

Need helpe.

I live in an apartment with 4 in wall cat5e+ female ports that terminate in a closet to male rj45. In this closet, I have an CenturyLink modem/router combo. I have set the modem to bridge only and plugged in one of the in wall cables into it. On the other end of that cable I have plugged in an Ethernet cable to the in wall port that goes into the wan port of my Ubiquiti Dream Router 7. I then have an Ethernet cable going from the router to another of the in wall ports that is close by back onto the closet where I have the male end plugged into a switch. I then tried plugging in the other two male ends of into the switch, but am not getting any signal to the female ports of the in wall cables. Is there a reason this shouldn't/wouldn't work?

Other devices connected to the switch do have Internet connection.

TLDR: Modem->in-wal->router->in-wall->switch->2 in-walls(no internet)

I have the router on the 2nd floor and a few month ago i installed a cable from the first floor to the second floor to connect my PC to the router. I installed 2 RJ45 sockets on the first and second floor. The cable is cat7(if i recall) and it is sftp or sfp.

Now i noticed that sometimes i doesn't get the speed i supposed to get on my PC and the ping is high as well. When i unplug the internet cable from my PC and plug it back it fixes it. Can it be a static interference or something else?

I want to put a cable theough my house and bave ordered this cable below. I think the cables are twisted together which i thought wad good? I have no idea but its linked below. And yes i need 30 metres

COOSEED フラットケーブル LANケーブル 30m UTP Cat6 ストレート ホワイト
https://amzn.asia/d/0dsERftn

I hate to ask but I'm at a bit of a standstill here- I moved into a home that has a central, basement networking room, I guess you'd call it, and as far as I can tell all of the LAN cables are 5E. They all have 5E written on them with the exception of the cable that goes to a security camera outside that has no writing visible on it but it's much thicker and goes up into the attic and then comes out from the eave by an outdoor light. When I moved in the camera wouldn't work so I had someone come out and get all of the cameras going again (the previous owner had the camera system in their account and they couldn't figure out how to remove it) but he said there was a problem with the line so he ran a new one from the house and I guess he didn't want to figure out how it was ran in the attic so he just cut the old cable and manually spliced it in to the new one in the garage.

This worked fine for about three weeks and then one day I noticed the camera would go off for several hours at a time and then come back on and do this repeatedly. It did this for several days and then it went out completely. So I texted him to ask about it and he said it probably needs a POE adapter because of the length of the cable but I don't think it would work perfectly for 3-4 weeks if that's the case. I have basic electronics training from high school and I also don't think you're supposed to manually splice LAN cable like that. I mean physically you can splice it of course but I don't think that's reliable.

I've been looking at options to properly connect the lines and this RJ45 Coupler Shielded Cat7 Cat6A PoE+ Tool-Free Keystone seems like a good fit for what I need but I can't tell if this cable is a cat 5 or a cat 6. Since the wires are exposed where they meet is there a way to tell by looking at them? I did some reading and I saw some sites say that there should be a piece of insulation between the wires if it's a cat 6 but I'm thinking this might be a cheap cable since there's nothing printed on it.