Re: [school-discuss] Cat-5 question

[Matt Drew <mdrew@redhat.com>]

Also make sure you have a quality crimper.  A low-quality crimper will 
often wear out over time, and begin to crimp bad connections even when 
it looks okay to the eye.

Matt

Chris Puttick wrote:
> Solid core is normally used for longer runs (lower resistance/metre) 
> than multicore, where multicore is normally used for fly and patch leads 
> (outside of the building structure) because of the greater resistance to 
> flex (bend a solid core enough times one or more of the cores breaks).
> 
> The other issue is this: IDC connectors (normally found on the back of 
> the RJ45 socket are designed to use solid core, and the RJ45 plugs are 
> (with specific exceptions) designed to be used with multicore. Trying to 
> terminate the wrong type of cable into the wrong type of socket/plug 
> will often result in poor or missing termination, even though visually 
> it looks ok.
> 
> A cheap cable tester can save much heartache and head scratching, a mid 
> priced one (say a Fluke  620) even more. Now if you're very rich, 
> there's nothing like a DSP2000 to sort out all your etwork cabling 
> problems... (or if you know a school that has Cisco Academy status, 
> borrow theirs!)
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Chris
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Aird
> To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
> Sent: 8/14/02 1:09 AM
> Subject: [school-discuss] Cat-5 question
> 
> I just got a new box (1000ft) of cat-5 cable and made five new runs
> through my office but couldn't get the links to come up.  After several
> hours of troubleshooting, re-crimping cables, moving hardware etc. I
> discovered that the new cable (four twisted pairs) is conducting on many
> 
> tiny fibers of copper while the rest of our building, running fine, has
> a solid piece of copper within each of the 8 individual strands.
> Otherwise there is no difference.
> 
> Am I going nuts or is there something to the solid piece vs. the many
> tiny strands difference?
> 
> Any help within the next 1-24 hours would be a huge help, so I can be
> ready to drop in our new set of servers and firewalls and offer internet
> 
> filtering (squid) and related services to the students by the first day
> of school.
> 
> Jim Aird
> HomeTech Charter School
> 



-- 
Matt Drew
Red Hat, Inc
Education Pilot Tech Coordinator
(919)880-7736 (cell)
(919)754-3700 x44192
mdrew@redhat.com