Home Networking, or "...why the heck should I go to the trouble of puling wire?..."
Most of us have more than one computer in our homes these days. Our home has my PC, my wife's PC, the "guest" PC upstairs, an Ethernet connection to my workbench in the garage, and my work laptop that often sits on my desk beside me. Like many homes, we have one broadband connection that we wanted to share with all the machines. While lots of folks take advantage of the great advances in wireless technology, I will tell you that all our PC's have "old fashioned" Ethernet cables connecting them all to our home network. Why go to the trouble? Lots of good reasons;
Total Cost - Most PC's and laptops have wired Ethernet ports as "standard equipment" anymore. Most now support "Gigabit" or "GbE" connectivity, which has a data rate of 1000 MBps. More and more laptops have wireless connections as standard equipment but virtually all systems have wired Ethernet ports. Wired routers and switches supporting GbE sonnections are very inexpensive.
Reliability - Wired connections don't fade in and out, or experience any interference from other wireless devices in your home.
Performance - This one is simple. If you move any large files over your network (backups, file sharing), or if you LAN game (we do), or if your work on on your PC involves any upload / download activity, you'll find a wired connection is unbeatable. Wireless LANs using 802.11b support a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 11 Mbps, roughly the same as that of the original Ethernet standard. 802.11a and 802.11g WLANs support 54 Mbps. That is approximately one-half the bandwidth of the "Fast Ethernet" 100 Mbps standard, or about 19% of the speed of gigabit Ethernet (GbE).
Furthermore, Wi-Fi performance is distance sensitive. Maximum performance is only obtainable under "perfect" connection conditions. Speed will be degraded on computers farther away from the access point or other communication endpoints. As more wireless devices utilize the WLAN more heavily, performance degrades even further.
Security - There are a number of very good ways to secure your home wireless LAN, but you have to secure it..!! I can walk out in my back yard and usually hit three or four homes that have completely open wireless connections. Worse yet, some even have file sharing enabled and it's as simple as opening up Windows Explorer to take a look at any file on their computer. Not so good. Wired Ethernet does have any such concerns.
Of course, any home network, wired or wireless, should incorporate a solid software firewall (like "Zone Alarm") and solid active virus scanning, but that's another post.....
Once you've decided to pull cable for your network, you'll need a good pair of RJ45 crimper's, some RJ45 ends, and some cable. You can buy it all at most of the better home improvement stores these days, and of course there are a ton of on line resources. You probably don't need a $100.00 pair of crimper's for a home installation, but it's like any tool - you get what you pay for. Cable and cable ends are also "get what you pay for" items. Use your own good judgment.
When it comes to cable, it can be confusing. Let me save you some confusion; just buy CAT5E and you'll be compatible with any Ethernet protocol you want to run, with one exception - 10GbE. This new protocol is not in wide use yet, and probably won't see widespread use in home applications for a long time, if ever. We have CAT5E throughout our home and it works great. Note that cable is fully downward compatible, so CAT5E is fully compliant compatible with CAT1, CAT2, CAT3, CAT4, and CAT5 standards. I have used it for everything from burglar alarms to telephone hookups. Simple choice.
Once you've got the wire pulled to where it's going to go, you have to put a plug on it. Two types of connections here; standard, and "cross over" connections. If you're connecting a computer to your router or switch, you'll need a standard connection. If you're going to hook up a PC directly to another PC, you'll need a "cross over" connection.
To install an RJ45:
1. Strip off about 2 inches of the cable sheath.
2. Untwist the pairs - don't untwist them beyond what you have exposed, the more untwisted cable you have the worse the problems you can run into.
3. Align the colored wires according to the diagrams below.
4. Trim all the wires to the same length, about 1/2" to 3/4" left exposed from the sheath.
5. Insert the wires into the RJ45 end - make sure each wire is fully inserted to the front of the RJ45 end and in the correct order. The sheath of the cable should extend into the RJ45 end by about 1/2" and will be held in place by the crimp.
6. Crimp the RJ45 end with the crimper tool
7. Verify the wires ended up the right order and that the wires extend to the front of the RJ45 end and make good contact with the metal contacts in the RJ45 end.
8. Cut the cable to length - make sure it is more than long enough for your needs. Remember, an end to end connection should not extend more than 100m (~328ft). Try to keep cables short, the longer the cable becomes the more it may affect performance, usually noticable as a gradual decrease in speed and increase in latency.
9. Repeat the above steps for the second RJ45 end.
10. If a cable tester is available, use it to verify the proper connectivity of the cable.
Straight Through Pin-Out:
Cross Over (Xover) Pin-Out:
How to find "Pin1" for both jacks and RJ45 plugs:
....hope this helps you guys, and maybe even you "learned something new".....
The very Best Regards - B.B.S.