Cat5 question.

[nihil]

I recently purchased a 50' cat5 utp cable for my lan at home. it worked fine for about 4 months until a couple of days ago when it started acting a bit funky. all of a sudden my box appeared to lose it's connection through my router so i checked everything to make sure it was not the router and determined that it was the cable. the weird part is this....it would accept connections on ports like 21 and you could telnet into and out of it (from inside the lan). but it would not connect to anything outside of my lan. i've never seen nor heard of anything like this before and i was wondering if anyone could think of any possible reasons of why this happened. also, i tried connected it directly to my cable modem instead of through the router and it would not renew nor release an ip address. i believe the one time i did it gave me an ip address that was class b which is strange because i am connected through a class a provider. i thought it might have been outside electrical interference but i tested the cable in many different occasions and received the same results. i also inspected for breaks in the cable and found none. so i have no idea how/why something like this happens. should i go with STP?

 

[spidey07]

That does sound strange. BUT cables do go bad (kinks, twists, wadding them up and using the wad to hold up your desk).

If the problem follows the cable and replacing the cable eliminates the symptoms, then cable is bad.

 

[nihil]

i know cables to go bad but it isn't common for a cable to die this early is it?

 

[spidey07]

no, not common.

I've also had brand new cat5 cables fail cat5 specs and cause poor performance. Rare, but it does happen.

 

[ScottMac]

It kinda is determined on how well it was terminated, and what kind of abuse it's exposed to. Every kink, twist, (jacket)compression...it's all cumulative, eventually the cable falls so far out of spec, the system can't compensate. Chances are if you "downshifted" to 10 megabit, it's work fine....maybe even 100/half.

"Cabling Matters" ... You can't run a car on diluted gas, or it won't run as fast if the tires are only inflated half way.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[Scarpozzi]

I've seen cables that are bad work fine when tested using a LAN CAT....this means they would also give you link lights on both ends. Once you establish that the cable's bad, I'd quit questioning since you've solved the problem. Just make or buy another one and get that network going again! Cables break just as hard drives sometimes go bad...something you can't really avoid if you have any number of clients on your network... Eventually one will go bad every now and then.

 

[Hobbzilla]

Perhaps some sub-atomic space particles have wreaked havok on the cat5's copper sub-dermal layer's atom spacer property arrangement thing-a-ma-jig.

Dude, just get try a new cable.

... and you may or may not be getting a Dell.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< That does sound strange. BUT cables do go bad (kinks, twists, wadding them up and using the wad to hold up your desk).

If the problem follows the cable and replacing the cable eliminates the symptoms, then cable is bad. >>


for whatever reason i found that extremely funny

 

[nihil]

yeah...i replaced the cable immeditely and it wasn't really a big deal. i was just more or less curious if anyone else had ever run into anything like that before because i know i haven't. thanks for your replies.

edit: i was referring to the specific circumstances in which the cable died, hehe. not about hardware borking itself in general.

 

[spidey07]

<< << That does sound strange. BUT cables do go bad (kinks, twists, wadding them up and using the wad to hold up your desk).

If the problem follows the cable and replacing the cable eliminates the symptoms, then cable is bad. >>


for whatever reason i found that extremely funny

>>


Its funny 'cause it true.

 

[skeletal29]

no it is not common i have cat 5 e cable running from the living room to the bed room and people(atlest 150 pounds) walking on it every day...for about 1 year already and the wire is still working gr8.