Building/wiring a home network - a little help please

[Swanny87]

Not sure of the distances (cat 5e only runs Gigabit up to 100m) you'd be looking at for your runs but I'd run cat 6 cable if I was you. Also kills two birds with one stone in terms of future proofing.

Edited by Swanny87 on Wednesday 13th August 17:14

[Swanny87]

In terms of running the cables try not to bend them too much. If you're going to change the direction of the cable 90 degrees bend the cable out over a longer radius. You don't really need to worry about interference from electrical cables as you're running along the floor.

Get everything you need from ebay. When buying the cable make sure it it isn't CCA (Copper Clad Aluminium) type cable - with cable you definitely get what you pay for. In terms of terminating the cables get a punch down tool that punches (with a click) down onto the rj45 connector as they are more reliable. Infact it might be best to try the crimp tool at a electricians/computer hardware shop rather than getting any old one off ebay. Everything else you mention seems to be in order. Good luck with it!

Edited by Swanny87 on Wednesday 13th August 17:16

[Swanny87]

Finally, beware, if you're looking at a 10+ port gigabit switch it's not going to be cheap. You also want to get an unmanaged one. This one on ebuyer looks pretty decent. Finally, finally I would make all runs go directly into the switch in the study rather than having a face plate at either end of each run. This has a few benefits - cheaper, less complicated and less points of failure. No point in going for aesthetics over functionality. You could always get a wall mounted wiring cabinet though

Edited by Swanny87 on Wednesday 13th August 17:32

[Riknos]

I did similar when I moved into my place - cat 5e all under the floorboard, into each room to stream HD films from a central server. Unfortunately, we didn't factor in needing additional cabling for sound as well as picture...

[h0b0]

Riknos said:

I did similar when I moved into my place - cat 5e all under the floorboard, into each room to stream HD films from a central server. Unfortunately, we didn't factor in needing additional cabling for sound as well as picture...

Bingo!! I wired my house up for everything. Of the cat5 that I put in I am using 1 for the NAS. 1 for the main PC and 2 for HD on a TV in the basement. Everything we watch on any device is done by wireless. This amazes me because I was 100% against it and wired to prevent it. The reality is that I find Chromecast being controlled by any IOS or PC device has been faultless.

I will admit that my PS3 is hard wired but is located remotely in the server closet with the ISP router so I haven counted that

[Mojooo]

Riknos said:

I did similar when I moved into my place - cat 5e all under the floorboard, into each room to stream HD films from a central server. Unfortunately, we didn't factor in needing additional cabling for sound as well as picture...

how do you remedy that? more cat 5e?

can you expand.

[mildmannered]

Seeing as you are a beginner with no real knowledge, I would suggest pre-terminated patch cables.

Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest.

They are available in various colours as well which may be helpful to you.

A couple of cables coming up through the floor directly into the device is much neater than surface mount boxes with keystone plates on them with patch cables hanging out of them. Also, the excess can be simply fed back into the floor void.

Awaits cries of "heresy"

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Cables-&-Accessori...

[Randomthoughts]

Maxf said:

Im fairly new to all this, but aside from TV, music player, blu ray player, HDD and a computer, what else would realistically get plugged in? I know you can control lights and all sorts, but I am not intending to go down that route and really just want 3 places where stuff can be plugged in - partly to keep costs sensible, as this is really a 'for me' item and partly as I dont really know what else I'd use it for other than streaming music/TV/films.

10 years ago, why on earth would you have wanted to plug your TV and your DVD player in? The internet is for reading?

What happens if in 5 years time, you have an IP based phone? Pull the wall to bits again, put some more wires in? OR put another switch in on the end (messy - you need power then!). What about if you decide your Virgin boxes need to be plugged in to the network (Virgin allow you to view recordings on your computers/tablets over the network)?

Definitely put two in where you need one now. Worst case you've spent an extra few quid. Best case you've saved yourself hundreds.

[shtu]

Swanny87 said:

I would make all runs go directly into the switch in the study rather than having a face plate at either end of each run. This has a few benefits - cheaper, less complicated and less points of failure.

This isn't a good idea. What you're doing is using fewer pieces, but using them in a less-reliable way.

The cable used for building wiring is solid-core and not very flexible, and is intended to be used with IDC terminations and left pretty much undistrubed once installed.

The cable for patchleads is stranded, flexible, and designed to be terminated using RJ45 crimp connectors.

Using it as a patchlead as you describe leads to two common failures,

- Crimping RJ45 plugs on the end isn't very reliable - the plugs are designed to be used with stranded cable.

- Repeated movement of the cables can lead to the cable cores breaking, or further reduce the reliability of the RJ45 crimp.

Far, far better to use a patch panel and patchleads.

[theaxe]

Agree with shtu, although for 3 or 4 connections a patch panel is probably ott. I'd use a 4 way faceplate like this.

[Mojooo]

if you have your wires coming out of a double socket but havent chosen the faceplate how many wires can you have out of one box? 3 or 4?

[Dodsy]

I took the easy way out when I wired my place, a single cat5e from my study to each bedroom and powerline from the study to the living room. Small gige switch in each room. I have an 8 port gige switch in the office and 5 port gige switches in every other room. They are cheap as chips.

[theaxe]

Mojooo said:

if you have your wires coming out of a double socket but havent chosen the faceplate how many wires can you have out of one box? 3 or 4?

4 if you use the ones I linked to.

[NorthDave]

Dodsy said:

I took the easy way out when I wired my place, a single cat5e from my study to each bedroom and powerline from the study to the living room. Small gige switch in each room. I have an 8 port gige switch in the office and 5 port gige switches in every other room. They are cheap as chips.

If you purely want IT then fine but this wont allow you to stream media in the future.

I will second (or third) the "run twice as many as you might need" approach. No one ever regretted having spare cables and you simply can't predict requirements for 10 years time.

[Dodsy]

NorthDave said:

If you purely want IT then fine but this wont allow you to stream media in the future.

I stream all my media over IP , 2 NAS media servers and i can stream full HD to anywhere in the house. I can do everything over IP.

[Randomthoughts]

Dodsy said:

I stream all my media over IP , 2 NAS media servers and i can stream full HD to anywhere in the house. I can do everything over IP.

You have IP, lucky you. Magical, wonderful, IP.

What's being suggested is that as data rates increase (and they are doing, spectacularly so) you're fighting massive levels of contention by delivering everything over one wire to a single port on a switch to then deliver data out to multiple devices.

Great if your NAS upstairs is delivering HD down to your media PC on the TV, but what happens when you're hauling 4K down from the NAS at the same time as someone upstairs is hauling 4K from the Sky box on the same cheapass switch back upstairs? Uh-oh... All aboard the failboat...

Edited by Randomthoughts on Wednesday 20th August 09:41

[NorthDave]

Dodsy said:

I stream all my media over IP , 2 NAS media servers and i can stream full HD to anywhere in the house. I can do everything over IP.

Sorry should have clarified - I'm talking centralised Virgin or Sky HD. I assume you are talking streaming films?

There are some HDMI distribution solutions which do over IP but they are very compromised i.e. not full HD or missing frames etc.

[ecotec]

agree with most of what has been written and from experience:

1) use a patch panel - do not crimp onto solid cable
2) make sure you get copper cable not CCA
3) terminate all cables in an accessible location - mines in the airing cupboard (heat seems not to cause any issues)
4)put extra cable in - its much easy now!
5) be careful with the cable and ensure it is not kinked

I got my kit from ebay, TLC direct and screwfix

these modular sockets work really well (also available from SF)
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/CXCAT6M.html
I used a couple of cat5e sockets with sat cable etc - all looks nice and neat

[Dodsy]

NorthDave said:

Sorry should have clarified - I'm talking centralised Virgin or Sky HD. I assume you are talking streaming films?

There are some HDMI distribution solutions which do over IP but they are very compromised i.e. not full HD or missing frames etc.

Ah yes I am talking about streaming films from a NAS plus one demand TV.

As we often have 3 or 4 devices streaming full HD at once I have 2 x NAS's that mirror each other, one upstairs one downstairs which keeps the traffic contained within each floor rather than having to switch it all back at the core. Its relatively scalable and meets our needs at the moment although as someone already pointed out 4K might stress it a bit and might mean I have to create further smaller networks with their own NAS's to stream that amount of data should the need arise in the future.

I think 4K may force 10Gb Ethernet to start hitting the home market but as it is so expensive maybe more likely that we'll see NAS's with multiple GigE ports which makes more sense to me.

[mildmannered]

It's always best to futureproof the home network and to keep things tidy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY1XB0rrYes