Network cabling issue - unlabelled wires

[DrFinkle]

I just purchased a house which has been renovated within the last year. During the renos they had the foresight to run CAT5e throughout the house. They set up 3 rooms on a mini-network "designed" to work with an ADSL-based internet connection (i.e. phone line into quad panel and other 3 plugs on the faceplate to connect to 3 other face plates in 2 other rooms) and 2 rooms on a mini-network "designed" to work on a cable-based internet connection (similar phenomenon to above but with cable plug instead of a phone line).

My problem is that in the crawl space of the house, I have found 4 (labelled I, II, III, IV) bare ends of CAT5e wire. I was not given a wiring diagram and have tried desperately (but unsuccessfully) to get it.

I am suspicious that these wires were designed to connect in some way to one or both of these mini-networks. I would like to set up a media server and utilize the pre-existing cabling, but I don't know how to track down the function and connectivity of these wires.

If anyone had some good ideas, I would be very grateful. I would really like to have all wires on a single network. thanks.

 

[chipmonk]

You can get a signal generator that telephone guys use. Have an associate connect it to the rooms one at a time and use the other part of the tool to determine which wire gets signal. Cell phones could be how you keep in touch. Make labels before you go into the crawl space. If all four lines come together that is where you will want to put your router.

 

[blue68f100]

Tone generators are good for tracing wires. The make one specificly for networks. You would be able to plug it into a wall jack. Just power down and unplug your the wires running into your current router/modem. Don't want to take the chance of damaging them with the trace unit.

Depending which part of the county you live in, the Craw space ambient temp will proably execed the max temp of any router you may install. You may need to install a patch panel to extend the wires.

Some computer nic cards now have the capabilty of tracing wires. They can give you the length of the cable and if there is a break. This might give you an idea as to which wires that are not terminated.