Connecting prewired ethernet in home, Cat5e

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Thomas_224

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Jan 24, 2017
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Hello, I have reviewed many threads here related to prewired homes and I have come to the conclusion that I simply need a gigabit ethernet switch to make the ethernet ports active throughout my home. My issue is, what do I connect in my box when my wires are not labeled. Picture links on the thread below. Thanks
 
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It should work, gets much more complex when things light up but don't actually work. You should be able to actually log into the router from the closet just as you would if you were to connect to the router with a short ethernet cable in the same room. This should work even if the internet is completely down.

If there is a coax cable connected to your modem then it gets it internet that way. If you have a adsl connection which means it uses the phone lines to get you internet it is going to much harder to accomplish what you want because you now must have functional cables going to the room that has the modem. One for phone and one for ethernet back to the other room.
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jsmithepa

jsmithepa

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Jun 14, 2014
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Can't attach picture on this forum, must host pic yourself and post link.

Switch is crystal clear obvious, everybody need a switch unless you are a network of 1.

Unlabeled wires? because I reply to these posts a lot, this is A HUGE PROBLEM. It can work out if you have a logical mind, but most people seems to not have the patience to get through all the terminologies we throw around here.
 
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Thomas_224

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Jan 24, 2017
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Thank you for your response. Here are a few of the images. Thankfully there are not many ethernet wires as I only have a 2 locations in the house (1 being the office where the modem/router is located, the other being my family room where there are 2 ethernet jacks). Any tips would be helpful, I'm just nervous about screwing the network up if I start unplugging and moving things!

https://postimg.org/image/3yimdymmx/

https://postimg.org/image/8vw6z2om1/
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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Like most houses there is the left overs from pre cell phones days.....does anyone but me really still have a copper phone line.

If your goal is to just get signal to the family room from your router in the office I would use a rj45 coupler. These are simple plastic things that connect 2 ethernet cables. You would remove the 2 wires from the phone thing in the cabinet and just connect the 2 wires together.

You are in effect just making a long cable between the rooms.

In houses that have lots of cables coming into the cabinet you would just place a switch there and connect all the jacks to the switch. In general you do not care what room goes to what port on the switch.....unless ones doesn't work.

Still it would be silly to buy a switch to connect just 2 cables.

 
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Thomas_224

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Jan 24, 2017
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Thanks Bill,
Can you tell from the image which wires need to be connected? Also, why is there a cut cat5e chord in the cabinet, where does that go to?
 
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bill001g

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That would be very hard to say. You need some way to test the cable. My guess would be it goes to the room that has 2 jacks. It would be silly to connect a phone line to 2 jacks in the same room. So just guessing I am going to bet the 2 other cables go to each of the rooms to provide phone.

 
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Thomas_224

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Thanks,
So I went out and purchased an in-line network cable coupler (rj45) and tried to connect the three CAT5e cables in different ways (image of the 3 cables I tried connecting, https://postimg.org/image/3yimdymmx/)
Cable 1 <-> Cable 2
Cable 1 <-> Cable 3
Cable 2 <-> Cable 3
while I had my computer hard wired to the ethernet cable that I want to activate behind my TV. None of these connections worked. So I went around and double checked where all of the possible CAT5e connections could be. Locations below

Location 1: Under my desk, where I have the modem/router connected to the internet. (image here: https://postimg.org/image/3yimdymmx/)
Location 2: In the family room, located with a coax cable and CAT5e wall plat (image here: https://postimg.org/image/d4eenwpw9/)
Location 3: Behind the TV, which has the actual CAT5e cable pulled through the wall to connect to TV. (image here: https://postimg.org/image/lnxslny8p/)

I am assuming that these three locations come together in this box, https://postimg.org/image/3yimdymmx/.

My ultimate objective is only to get the ethernet cable behind the TV active as I want to enable my smart TV functionality. Is it possible that the family room jack (location 2) is a stand alone CAT5e cable that runs behind the wall to the TV? I unhooked my modem and moved it from Location 1 to Location 2 to see if it would activate Location 3 but it never found internet. Therefore I am assuming that location 2 is not "hot". Any help or guidance is appreciated and no I am not actually afraid of screwing up the network as I want to fix this issue.

Thanks!


UPDATE: I went down to my cabinet where the 3 CAT5e chords are located and connected each on to my computer to see if any had a signal. 1 of the 3 did (the top right wire in the image above). However my computer could not connect to the internet, just recognized there was a signal from that chord. I am not sure if this is useful for anyone who wants to help me or not.

Thanks again.
 
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bill001g

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I suspect the cable in the left top port is a phone line coming in from outside the house. The other 2 ports likely go to the rooms. The cable hanging on the left of the cabinet without a end likely goes to the second jack in the room with 2.

Unfortunately now that you did not get lucky you are going to have to learn all about things like wiring patterns 568b and 568a.

So first you need to check and make sure all the cable and all the ports follow one of the common wiring patterns. You will need to remove the plates in the rooms to check them. Phone lines only use the center pair (normally blue/bluewhite) so the other pairs may not have been tested.

Finding cables is tricky. They make special tools but to locate wires that put tones on the wire but you will spend $50 for something you likely not use again.

So after you are sure the jacks are wired correctly. I would plug the modem/router lan port into the wall jack. Take your pc into closet and try each cable. You then at least know where the cable to that room is.
 
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Thomas_224

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Jan 24, 2017
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Thanks Bill,
I see what you're saying but have a few questions. With my Modem/router combo connected at Location 1, I was able to use my computer to detect that one of the 3 CAT5e lines in my closet was live, although it still wouldn't connect to the internet. Should my computer be able to connect to the internet if that indeed is the line from location 1?

I tried moving my modem/router to Location 2 (CAT5e/coax port) and the router/modem wouldn't establish a connection to the internet and I did not try to go to the closet with my computer to test for any internet connections to the 3 cables as the router was not producing a wireless signal at all. I am beginning to wonder if the Location 2 CAT5e port is a stand alone wire that runs behind the wall to location 3, which is behind my TV. Which doesn't make sense as I have read that "live" wiring should all flow to a central port.

Since I get a signal from my computer in the closet when the modem/router is connected at location 1, I am thinking that if I can get that to connect to the internet, I the rj45 coupler should work if indeed one of those other 2 wires connects to the back of the TV. Any thoughts on why the wire is not transmitting a signal? Where does the modem/router actually get the signal from the ISP, is it the coax cable or the CAT5e cable that connects from the wall to the "input" CAT5e port? Thanks for your help on this.



 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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It should work, gets much more complex when things light up but don't actually work. You should be able to actually log into the router from the closet just as you would if you were to connect to the router with a short ethernet cable in the same room. This should work even if the internet is completely down.

If there is a coax cable connected to your modem then it gets it internet that way. If you have a adsl connection which means it uses the phone lines to get you internet it is going to much harder to accomplish what you want because you now must have functional cables going to the room that has the modem. One for phone and one for ethernet back to the other room.
 
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