Good place for network cables?
 

Hey after moving into my new apartment i realized that this damn wireless network is almost worthless. So now comes the time for me to buy a bigass cat 5 cable and run it through the place. Where is a good quality cheap place to get a cable like that? Also is there any specific type i should buy, im seeing a huge variety.

ive bought almost all mine at newegg.com and neva had any problems. And they are priced very well. Ive herd making your own is a pain if u dont know what you are doing. but ive always bought premade cords

Don't do it man - it is a conspiracy. Go to home depot and buy 500ft of cable, the RJ4 ends and the crimping tool. You will spend what you would on 5 cables or so, they will all the be exact right length and you will have enough to make 30-50 cables. You can do yours and all your friends houses.

"give a man a fish - he eats for a day - teach a man to fish he can eat for a lifetime"

I can even help you if you don't know what to do. PM me if you need assistance.

Is there any real difference between Cat 5(e) and Cat 6? I am using a Dlink DI 614+ and my onboard nic (Asus K8VSE Deluxe)

Cat5e and Cat6, to my understanding, are the exact same thing when talking about performance for most people. Cat6, however, is made to a "higher standard". If you're only planning on networking your home, there is little (if any) difference that I've seen.

Also, let me second Mondak's recommendation. Not only is it much cheaper, you'll gain valuable experience. It's pretty easy, but if you screw up, who cares? You've got more cable than you'll need anyway.

I third the DIY thing. I cabled under the floor at my house - with proper sockets at each end, then made my own cables for wall to pc.

Well, do you want to provide any information or reasons why you think the wireless network is not worth a damn?

10's of millions of people out there disagree. :-)

I'm in the wireless networking industry, so I can safely say that they do work, and work very well, when configured properly.

Mr Mephisto

cat5e supports 1000mb
cat6 supports 10,000mb

You wont need anything more than cat5e. Hell cat5 would probally work for what you are doing now.

Maybe I am wrong here, but I thought both cat 5e and cat6 were both only rated at 100MB, do you have any links to back this up, I am really curious now...

http://discountcablesusa.com/ethernet-cables.html

This link describes differences in the cables.

Well after moving into this new apartment and getting the internet all set up i can barely stay on the network with this wireless. I have the Dlink Di 614+ router and a DWL-520 wnic. The signal is almost always at 100% but the "link quality" is always below 30%, windows give me 0 out of the 5 green bars when i check the connection status. My download speeds have gone from 400k to about 150k and it get dropped all the time. At one point I had the router sitting just down the hallway with nothing in the way but possibly my monitor. But apperantly that 10-15ft was just too far. If you can think of something that could be causing this i would be all about it, but i am having no luck over here.

Actually now that i check again the signal strength is down to about 50-70% consistantly. :\

Both cat5e support 100mb/10mb. I was just posting what the highest speeds the specific type of cable is rated for. If a cable is rated for 1000mb it will run at 100mb and 10mb.

info on cables http://www.lanshack.com/cat5e-tutorial.asp

I use LanShack for all of my cabling needs - bought a nice toolkit with crimper, wire stripper, etc. from there, also RJ45 ends and bundles of Cat5e ethernet cable for wiring the flat.

I made my own network cable. Not to hard all you have to do is find a website that has the order the cables go in. I even had some left over cable that I plan to hook up to my ps2.

well i went to homedepot and checked out the bulk cable, but it seems that it will be quite a bit of cash to get started making cables. The crimper alone was 35$. I really just need this one cable as i have a bunch of smaller cat5 cables. I think i will just order the 50ft cable from newegg for 10$ shipped, at least unless mr. wireless man thinks he may know how i could boost the signal and get this wireless working...

If you just need one cable, and have no intention of making cable in the future, then you're better off purchasing just the cable.

However, if you're willing to be making cable a lot, then it pays off to buy the supplies to make your own.

Just 2 quick questions...Is your network encrypted? Do you have Service Pack 2?

From my experience, service pack 2 doesn't like encrypted networks. Take off the encryption, and it works fine.

As far as I can tell, the DWL-520 is a PCI wireless adaptor, so I'm assuming you're networking a desktop. The 614+ is a 802.11b device that supports D-Links non-standard AirPlus technology.

It sounds like you are experiencing interference.

The first thing I would do is check if you can detect other wireless networks. Use your Windows panel to "search for wireless networks". Do you see any others?

It is always a good idea to change the default channel your AP uses. 802.11b networks work in the 2.4Ghz frequency range. It's called a frequency range because, in fact, there are 11 "channels" that a device can send or receive on. Your Access Point and your client device must use the same channel. The client device will automatically detect whatever channel your Access Point is configured with. I would recommend you logon to the AP and change it.

For interest's sake, the channels are:

1 2412 Ghz
2 2417 Ghz
3 2422 Ghz
4 2427 Ghz
5 2432 Ghz
6 2437 Ghz
7 2442 Ghz
8 2447 Ghz
9 2452 Ghz
10 2457 Ghz
11 2462 Ghz

Channels 12, 13 and 14 are used outside the US, so you need not worry about them.

The thing about channels is to understand the concept of "non-overlapping". I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say that you are recommended to use channels 1, 6 or 11 only. Try one of those and see if your stability improves.

Personally, I'd also disable D-Links non-standard 22Mbs transmission rates.

Also, note that older cordless phones, imperfectly shielded microwave ovens, baby monitors and even Bluetooth devices can interefere with an 802.11b/g network. Any of these near your Access Point or PC?


Mr Mephisto

Hey if you ever need a cable i'll make them for cost...just pay the price of the ends and the cable at cost and shipping....

whatever you do, don't buy them from compusa, etc.

I buy from computer fairs.....4 bucks for quality 25 foot cat5e, 10 bucks for a 100 foot length. Computer Fairs Own.

lowes is used to have cat5 for 5 cents a foot. now they jacked it up to 9 cents