Installing Ethernet

[Dingodile]

I've been searching the net for a how-to guide regarding wiring my home, but have not had any luck. I hoping some of you may know of such a guide or be able to provide any tips?

FYI, I'll also be using a wireless router, but I want wired hookups in all my rooms as well.

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

I've been searching the net for a how-to guide regarding wiring my home, but have not had any luck. I hoping some of you may know of such a guide or be able to provide any tips?

FYI, I'll also be using a wireless router, but I want wired hookups in all my rooms as well.

Well first off this depends alot on the house. Some houses are rather easy to wire, some are rather hard. For wiring the main floor, one thing that REALLY helps is a false ceiling in the basement (That is a ceiling with space above the tiles like this http://www.spacefits.com/images/ceiling-2.jpg )

With ceilings without any space, it's virtually impossible to wire inside the wall. People generally in these circumstances run conduits along the wall, which looks REALLY ugly.

Wiring can be very simple or very hard depending on the circumstances. If you know electrical or phone wiring, it should be extremely easy to learn how to wire up Ethernet.

 

[root]

hmm... when I wired my house we just ran cables under the floorboards, and they all came up to a sort of preassembled patch pannel of regular network boxes...

baiscally, all you need to do is...

buy the wire,
for installed cabling it is better to use solid core wire rather than the multi stranded wire for patch cables,

buy network boxes and RJ45 modules, (sometimes these will come packages together, sometimes they come seperate, though mostly always if you buy a face plate, even if it comes with RJ45 modules, they are unlikely to come with the back box that fixes to the wall...
the back box, (assuming you get the 1, or 2 outlet face plates are usually a standard ABS box, like the ones you might see for plug sockets, telephonme sockets or light switches.

next you'll need a punch down tool, these are fairly inexpensive, it is possible to use a regular screw driver, but it's fiddly, and the results are usually less than satisfactory,


do a quick google search for cat 5 wiring and you'll see what order the pins should be connected in, though usually on most sockets they'll have colour coded symbols on the actual pins...


lay the cable in first before you attach the actual connections,,, so you should see something like a couple of boxes attached to the wall, with a few inches of cable coming out of each box,

next, strip back some of the outer cable, (and if you buy shielded cable strip back the foil as well and you should see the four pair os wires that are twisted together...

the twists on the wires help prevent inteference, you'll need to untwist the pairs, but don't untwist more than you need to, (a few centimeters), next lay the single cables (with their insulation still intact) onto the top of the blocks of the network socket.

put your punch down tool onto of the wire, (with the slot inline with the blade of the terminal, and press down, the terminal will cut the insulation on the wire, and make a nice snug fit, that holds the wire in place,
repeate for all the other cables onto the right parts of the block. and then do the same at the other end...


now, put a patch cable from one box to your hub/switch/router, and put a patch cable from the other end into your computer...


et voila, it's done....

 

[Tommy Boy]

Why take all that time and trouble to wire the house when you are using a wireless router?

I'd just buy wireless cards for your pc's and be done with it.

 

[Dingodile]

Why take all that time and trouble to wire the house when you are using a wireless router?

I'd just buy wireless cards for your pc's and be done with it.

I hear you and understand. It's just my inner-geek forcing me to have my house totally dialed up.

Also, I want to wire my home for ceiling speakers in every room, so it's kind of like two birds with one stone.

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

I hear you and understand. It's just my inner-geek forcing me to have my house totally dialed up.

Also, I want to wire my home for ceiling speakers in every room, so it's kind of like two birds with one stone.

Remeber the longer the audio cable, the weaker the signal at the other end.

 

[hascet]

You can run you cable through walls, thats how it is in my house for some of the connections. For instance, to go from the first floor to the second we drilled a hole in th top of the wall through the attic, then dropped a string down with a weight on it a bolt or nut, then used electrical tape to secure it to the string and pulled it up then ran it through the attic to the wall where we needed it then put a wall outlet on the wall and there you have it ethernet connection

Why take all that time and trouble to wire the house when you are using a wireless router?

I'd just buy wireless cards for your pc's and be done with it.

I totally agree, with this, its a waste of your time, especially with the wireless N, which has the capability to transfer data at up to 300mb, and at this point in time the internet connection isn't even that fast, and I know that the Belkin series wireless-N has a much greater range than wireless-g, so there shouldn't be a problem with being out of range. Plus its backwards compatible with g and b, therefore if you have a laptop with a built in wireless it will still work