ethernet wiring question

[solefald]

so i just moved into this new spot. looks like there is ethernet cable already running though the walls, and RJ-45 plugs installed in the walls.

now, one of my old places used to have that too, and each cable ran into the little wiring cabinet in a closet and i had to install a network switch there.

this place, however, is unlike anything i've seen before, even after being a sysadmin/network admin for the past 12 years. here, all wires run to a patchl pane, with 2 little loopty-loop wires interconnecting 6 cables (even though i only found 4 plugs).

i figured that wire was basically a ghetto implementation of a hub, and just made all traffic broadcast to all plugs at the same time. so i tried plugging in my time capsule to see if those other plugs will go live, but nothing happened. im gonna bring a network tester from work tomorrow and try to figure out wtf, but if anyone knows how this thing is supposed to work, let me know...

Here is a picture of this thing....

Oh, and i don't have crossover cable here, but both, my macbook and time capsule are auto-sensing, so there shouldn't be any issues with that. And why only 2 wires? Ethernet cable is 8 and i thought that 4 were live, not 2

[b335i]

Interesting, I am dealing with a similar problem in a new place I just bought. What I ended up doing is just buying a small patch panel re-patching in and tracing each line (just so I knew what was what). Then connected the ports I was using into switch. What they have going on there looks like a mess, I would just get rid of that and trace the RJ45's that you are going to be utilizing.

[Tondtar]

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[radix]

The type 66 punch blocks are usually used for phone wiring, and traditionally weren't rated for speeds higher than 10-BaseT (there are exceptions). Are you sure that wiring is not for the phone system? Don't let the fact that it is cat5 or cat5e fool you. Usually a type 110 punch down is used for data.

[gadget12345]

Thats a phone punch block - And yes you can use CAT5 cables for phone, I do it all the time since thats what I have on hand.

There's no way thats for data.

[yomama69]

Yes, phone punch block. Check elsewhere for ethernet.

[isabayo]

yup, that looks like a phone punch block. My house has cat5 to all the rooms for either voice or data. You could select a few lines you want for data and either get a patch panel or just terminate it with rj-45 and use a switch.

[solefald]

thanks guys!

i woke up this morning and realized that the place does not have any RJ-11 plugs in the walls, so i figured those geniuses used RJ-45 for the phone, thus confusing the fuck out of me.

im just gonna install a small network patch panel and hook up to a switch. have a ton of both laying around at work

[srobmw]

FWIT the "loopty loop" is known as "daisy chaining".

I agree that this was probably done to send one phone line to multiple jacks.

[solefald]

problem fixed!

[frahuang]

Nice, at least you don't have to run cables.

[darkphantom]

haha nice!

I was thinking it was some old methodology like popping the cap off the cat5s to use them for crossover cables etc...

[str86diesel]

It looks like to me that they had some type of TDM phone switch and were just bridging the phone appearances together. I used to do that all the time with an old Lucent G3 switch.

That's how you would wire up the bosses and admins phones to ring at the same time, so that the admin could filter the bosses calls. My guess is that, that space was occupied by a small amount of people and either they were all answering each others phone, or they only had 1 phone line and were sharing it amongst everyone.

[solefald]

Originally Posted by str86diesel

My guess is that, that space was occupied by a small amount of people and either they were all answering each others phone, or they only had 1 phone line and were sharing it amongst everyone.

well, it's an apartment/condo building built about 6 years ago, so i don't think it was intended for any commercial use. i have no intention to use land line phone anyway, but ethernet i way more userful.

my kids G4 mac mini and the older intel mac mini that i have hooked up to the TV do not have 802.11n, but now my remote desktop is not painfully slow any longer