I think I understand the question, although I'm unclear on the rationale. It sounds like you want to go from unterminated wire --> switch? I feel like there may be a slight gap in understanding here.
You have unterminated Cat5e bundled in your On-Q box. You have 8 runs of this cable; one end of these cables is terminated, evidenced by the fact that you have 8 (presumably) wall-mounted ethernet jacks around your house. The other end of these 8 cable is unterminated, as we see in your picture.
You want to centralize your wired networking so that you can actually use those 8 wall connections around your house.
To do this, the very first step, no matter what, is to terminate those 8 cables (in your picture). You have two options here:
1. Terminate the cables with RJ45 ends (so they look like one/either end of your typical ethernet cable you buy from the store/get for free with a router/are used to seeing).
2. Terminate the cables into a patch panel (the block that is referenced in the links above).
The end effect is essentially identical, with one key difference: When you terminate to the patch panel (option 2), you end up with a female connection (the same as your current 8 wall jacks around your house have). When you teminate with standard RJ45 plugs (option 1), you end up with male ethernet cables that you can plug into a switch.
ch33zw1z outlined this in his post above.
You really should take option 2. This picture from our condo when we first moved in might help:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2541694/IMG_00000065.jpg
You can see our On-Q cabinet, and above that, we had a local company run the connections a short distance up (behind the drywall) and terminate two wall jacks: the one on the left has 6 female RJ45 outlets, and the one on the right has a single RJ45 outlet + COAX.
I then have some ethernet cables (standard, male-to-male Cat5e/Cat6) that I plug into the wall jacks on one end, and the other end (which you cannot see in the picture) goes into my switch. The COAX goes into the cable modem for internet service. The entire arrangement is as follows:
COAX --> Cable modem --> Router-->Switch
Cables from patch panels -->Switch
Depending on your specific cable modem/router arrangement, your setup may differ slightly, but the principles are the same.
I centralize everything into a 9U rack with a 24-port managed switch. Since that picture was first taken, I've labeled all cable runs at the wall ports around our condo as well as on the cables (on both ends) that are plugged into the patch panels --> switch in the network closet.
This is much neater than having a bunch of ethernet cables coming directly out of the On-Q panel and/or running the cables and out of an ugly hole in the drywall. I don't have to worry about the actual cables that are in the wall getting damaged/connectors coming loose/etc., either.
Hope this helps.
Edit: looks like ch33zw1z got back to you while I was writing. Good luck all the same!
Thanks dawza. Nice setup, it looks a lot cleaner with the wall jacks. I think I want to do the same.
So yes, you are correct. There are 8 terminated wall jacks around the house that lead up to this home system (my original picture). It looks just like yours except you have your enclosure closed. So these 8 runs lead to the home system are unterminated at the home system. What I want to do and am now inspired by your post is:
Unterminated cables -> patch panel -> wall jacks above OnQ enclosure -> switch
What I have on another floor is the "all-in-one" modem/wireless router. With that, I will plug that into one of the 8 terminated wall jacks so it basically connects to the switch through the patch panel.
From there in each room, I can essentially plug in a wireless access point to extend the wireless network.
I hope I'm correct here. Again this is all new to me so I'm learning as I go along. With the connects from patch panel -> wall jacks -> switch and also from the modem/wireless router -> wall jack, I have to use all patch cables, right?