How do I use Cat-5 cabling?

J

JeTTe

New Member
Hey there, I recently bought a new house that is prewired with Cat-5 cabling. Everyone seems to freak out over this because they say I can hook up all electrical devices to it. (tv's, speakers, DVD players, phones, PC's etc) I have no idea if this is true and would like to know just what EXACTLY can I use this cabling for. I have a PC desktop in my basement which is hardwired to high-speed cable internet, and would like to somehow hookup my wifes' laptop (which is upstairs in her office connected to phoneline) to wireless hi-speed. Can I use the Cat-5 cabling for this somehow? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
 
Do you have a map of where the cabling goes i.e. which ends correspond to other ends. Also, is there an area that has a bunch of ends, like where a router might be placed? This might be a little too much to do at once for a someone that has never networked... do you have a friend, maybe from work, that would know how to set it up for you?
 
Cat5 cabling is ment for networking. (ethernet to be more precise)
I assume youre working sith switches/routers or hub's on in your network, so i gues the cables can be put into the RJ-45 connectors.
like this:
ethcable568a.gif


if you use a specific cable to connect 2 pc's directly to eachother,.. you'll need to connect the RJ-45's like this (Crossover)
ethcablerj45cr.gif





Ive taken the pic's from this website.. and i gues i should give them credit for them ^^
 
I don't think he's interested in making his own cables... it's more of that the cables are built into his home, and he want to know how to utilize them.
 
well.. that still brings it down to this.. because CAT5 is ethernet cable.. and depending on how you want to connect the devices to it. you'll need to have the connectors like this.
 
In my basement by the electrical panel, all cat5 wires are there and are labelled for every room in the house. I won't be installing it myself, I'll hire someone who knows what they're doing. I just want to know if I can get my wife's laptop hooked up to high speed using cat5 through a router on my PC? I don't know how that would work. My desktop is not hooked up to cat5, it has cable hi-speed. I just find it a waste to have all these cat5 wiring and not using it. SO, basically cat5 is strictly for PC's (ethernet), more or less for networking. I can't hook up electrical devices to it. ex. Have a stereo receiver in the basement and be able to play music all through the house, with speakers hooked up in each room.
 
indeed.. CAT5 is intended for networking. and yes, you can connect the laptop with the pc (through a router or ethernet-switch)
 
JeTTe said:
In my basement by the electrical panel, all cat5 wires are there and are labelled for every room in the house. I won't be installing it myself, I'll hire someone who knows what they're doing. I just want to know if I can get my wife's laptop hooked up to high speed using cat5 through a router on my PC? I don't know how that would work. My desktop is not hooked up to cat5, it has cable hi-speed. I just find it a waste to have all these cat5 wiring and not using it. SO, basically cat5 is strictly for PC's (ethernet), more or less for networking. I can't hook up electrical devices to it. ex. Have a stereo receiver in the basement and be able to play music all through the house, with speakers hooked up in each room.
Click to expand...

wow those are a lot of questions :)
bear with me on the numbers here
you have 5 rooms plus one basement, one cable starts in each room and finishes in the basement. Where you have one internet connected.
You will need to buy 1 router (they are seperate units), you will connect the ends of all 5 cables to the router. You will either:
connect an ethernet cable to the router from the basement PC and enable internet sharing on this PC.
Or, you can connect a modem directly to the router which will share the connection out to all the 5 cables :)

explain to me how you connect the baement pc to the net, explain the hardware and software used so we know the type of connection you have (hi speed doesnt help us:) )
 
So, if we are sharing the connection(internet) through 2 PC's, I'm assuming that it will be slower than normal. Then the cat5 wiring really isn't that beneficial to me then. I don't want a network, because my wifes Laptop is for work purposes, as mine is just for surfin and gaming. What do people do if they have 2 Pcs' in their house(no networking) and both need hi-speed? To explain my connection type this would be the best way as I am not very computer literate(as I'm sure you already guessed). http://www.shoprogers.com/store/cab...sp?shopperID=W4RXTXEFXUM49MB2VUJB995GACNK7Q93
 
you'll need to install both a router and a switch to get the data drops (the cat5 calbes in each room) hot. Then you just plug every device that can run ethernet into the data drop in the wall. The rest is just a matter of setting them up on a network.

You will also need to install your cable/DSL/broadband modem down where all the drops meet.
 
I threw together a quick diagram that may help you. They have to be networked to share the internet. The loss of speed will depend on the amount data each pc is downloading. If you both are simply surfing, I doubt you notice a difference.

http://www.groovydos.com/Tom/netwok.pdf
 
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Cool, now I get it. Thanks for the pic Crypto.:) Seeing it makes me understand more. Thanks everyone for the help, it is greatly appreciated.;) You'll prolly here more from me as I encounter other PC problems. What a great site this is.:) Peace.
 
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