On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:49:50 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article
,
wrote:
When we had our extension built recently, I took the opportunity to
install a Cat5 LAN. Well, to be more accurate, the electrician ran the
cabling in but said he didn't do network wiring so the tails sat there
for a while until eldest son got his new laptop. I got a friend who is
an experienced network engineer with his crimping tool to install the
face plates for the network points.

A diagram of the network is he

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30588773@N04/2864919945/

The engineer had a wee gizmo that he plugged into the individual points
and then another into the 4-gang which lit up to show that the wires
were correctly connected. Everything seemed fine and dandy and, as I
say, he's an experienced engineer.

Unfortunately the network doesn't work. A laptop plugged into any of
the individual 1-gang outlets can't see the network. However, if it's
plugged directly into the back of the router, all is fine.

Anyone any thoughts? I bought the cable from work (we do network
installations, though I'm a software engineer myself) - it's unshielded
twisted pair, and it's what we have in our work LAN.

Experienced engineer or not he's made a cock up?

Here's the correct wiring:-

http://www.jaysafe.co.uk/technical/rj45.asp

Just a thought - have you got face plates either end with jumpers to the
router?

Looks like it from his diagram. As long as the colours each end of a
cable and on both ends of the faceplates are the same it should 'work',
although using the proper EIA/TIA 568 A or B colour coding will give you
much better range and lower crosstalk figures.

None of the cables in the system should be 'crossover' types, although
the majority of routers now have MDI/MDIX ports that can automatically
cope with straight or crossover anyway.

If a network engineer did the faceplates and the cables came from work
then both of those should be OK. That leaves the cables.

Cat-5 is sturdy enough, but probably a bit lighter than your sparks was
used to, especially since they are almost certainly solid core. Putting
too tight bends or bending them too often could get you snapped cores.
But again, you say the network tester said it was OK. (Aside: if anybody
needs one, try this - it's simple but it works well and costs almost
nothing:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4439)

So if all the wiring is OK, that leaves... nothing.

With the laptop plugged into a faceplate, can you ping the routers IP
address?

Is the four way faceplate fully wired into the router, or do you just
have a couple of cables? Are you sure the right sockets are connected all
the way back to the router?

When you plug the laptop in, does the 'link light' come on (usually a
green led on the rj45 socket on the laptop, and another on the router?)