Over a year ago I decided to rip up the carpets of the main bedroom of our new house, the landing and then take up some floorboards.  Why would I do this? Well it was to take on the task of laying some network cables in some of the rooms in the house.

My loving and wonderful wife, backed me with this, but did go to her parents with our kiddie with the words 'just don't destroy the house' as she left…

The house is still standing, there are four network cables laid in the lounge, and one in our bedroom.

The purpose was to provide a network infrastructure round the house – yeah I know wireless networks are pretty good these days, but to have the potential of a 1 Gig (i.e. high speed) and reliable network connection… well, no contest.

I spent about a day (8 hours) over two days installing the cables. Unfortunately the only thing that would work with the cables downstairs were the laptops – My XBox, Desktop computer or other equipment didn't work.  Yesterday I got it all working.  Here's the setup I went through and some tips if you want to try this as well as the problems I faced. I won't cover about lifting floorboards or drilling holes as each house will differ and need a different approach. So without further ado...

Tools and Materials.

There are certain things you will need:

1. Crimping Tool – used to prepare cables and fit RJ45 plugs to the end of cables.
2. Cable Stripper – some crimping tools have these built-in but you can damage the actual cables if you're not careful. Cable Strippers are a bit safer.
3. RJ45 plugs – needed to plug into your equipment!
4. Cat 5e cable – this is pretty much the standard cable used and can be used to get speeds up to 1 Gigabit speeds.  You could also get Cat 6 if you wanted to but Cat 5e will get your HD files around your network just fine! These usually come in boxes of about 300 meters.
5. Network Punch tool – used to place wires into a network outlet/module or patch panel – this is an optional tool that may not be needed depending on the Network outlets you purchased.
6. Network testing kit – this comes in two parts, one that is powered and another smaller part which is not.  This is a VERY, VERY useful tool as you will find out later…

All these tools can be picked up on Ebay pretty reasonably – have a look around and see what you can find.

There are some hardware components that you will need as well:

1. A Router – used for internet access for your network.
2. A switch - used as a central point for your network to plug into.  You could also use a hub but these work in a different way.
3. A Patch Panel – This is an optional component depending on how you want to plan your infrastructure.  With a Patch Panel the bare wires go directly into the patch panel.  The other option is to put an RJ45 plug onto the end of the cable which goes directly into the Switch.  Patch panels would be useful if you need to have network separation – not likely within a home environment.

 Planning.

The main thing to do with anything like this is planning – you may not be in the position to lay cables easily (i.e. your house isn't in the process of being built). Here's the process I followed:

1. Consider what equipment will be used in each room – e.g. the lounge uses laptops + XBox + [Future] Blu-Ray = 3
   Dining Room uses laptops = 1
   ETC.
2. Once you know how many connections you may need, you can then plan where your outlets will be – this may be dependent on where your equipment is located in the room as well as accessible points in the room.
3. Plan for redundancy – always lay more cables in case you need to add a socket or one of the cables fail.
4. Choose a central place for your network.  Make it as central in the house as possible as this will help the routing of cables.  Also you may have to ensure that there are power requirements for the location as well if you already have a location where there already infrastructure like telephone or television.
5. Be prepared to do the house in sections – if you know that you will be decorating a room then do the cables for that room at a later point.

One thing to do is draw up some room layouts and materials list.  OneNote is extremely useful for this.  Once this is done you can start putting codes on each network port to ensure that it is easily identifiable for your network – e.g.

Bedroom 1 = B1
Network Port  = A
Network Port = B
Network Port  = C

This way you can see B1A and know which cable this is at your hub as well as in the room. This is especially important for troubleshooting.

Finally you will then need to measure up each cable run.  This helps in two ways:

1. You know how much cable you will need to purchase.
2. You can check that your cables do not exceed the maximum cable length (which is 100 meters).

If your cables do exceed the length you may need to consider your switch location or use two switches and then join the 2 networks together.

The final thing is to try and plan for all the cables to follow the same physical path - this means that hopefully you will only have to pull up a few floorboards or drill holes in wall!

Laying the Cables.

Firstly make sure you have a lot of time – it should not be under-estimated how much time is needed for this as there are some things that can be issues that you cannot be found until actual installation.

Start by making sure that there access to the Network cupboard is clear then start with one room and lay the cables from the one room to the Network Cupboard – don't connect any plugs or ports just yet.  Also mark each wire with the code. Follow the procedure for each cable.

Connecting the cables

This is the area that has tripped me up for about… a year!  Part of it was down to bad instructions with the ports and network modules, part lack of information and also part my stupidity! 

The infrastructure should follow a 'straight through' principle and not cross-over (see link below in the instructions) BUT it is not as simple as that. This was the big issue that I hit.  I was using Siemon equipment and network modules.  On the back of the Network outlet it handily had the pin layout – my mistake was that I put the same pin configuration on the RJ45 end as well.  When I plugged in the RJ45 into my switch and the main part of my Network Tester (the powered part) into the outlet, I found that only 4 of the 8 pins were transmitting but couldn't figure out why – especially seeing my laptops worked on the ports but nothing else did.

It took a looong time to figure out what the problem was – and this is where my knowledge also failed me.  At the time I didn't realise that you could plug in the secondary part of the network testing tool to the other end of the cable (I thought it was used to convert from RJ45 to RJ11) – d'oh.  This I only found out last week.  When I plugged it in the other end of my Network Cable I had an interesting experience – the signal at the other end jumped around the pins instead of following sequentially… After the testing and figuring out which cable needs to go to which pin, here's the cable to pin configuration I found out worked:

* This is the configuration on the Siemon Network Jacks that I used – this may have been updated or in fact may vary completely to other brands.
** The RJ45 used THE standard that has been defined by and for the industry – not the Siemon cabling standard.

What I've outlined above doesn't seem to be documented anywhere – not on the Siemon site, not generally on the Internet.

There are two really important tips that I would give to anyone doing this:

1. If you are putting an RJ45 connector on the end of a cable, always use the industry standard configurations (doesn't matter if it is the A or B but whatever standard you use, BUT you must use the same standard on both ends) – the order of the cables doesn't matter if you are creating a patch cable but it will for the infrastructure. I would recommend using the configuration for everything. That way you can eliminate one issue when troubleshooting.
2. For connecting to network ports or patch panels follow the guidelines on their equipment. If they are different to the industry standards stick with what the company is using.

Regardless the network test tool is your best friend. Once you have installed the outlet plug a (working!) patch cable into the outlet and connect the powered part of your network tester. On the RJ45 end connect the secondary part of the cable. There are two things that you are looking for:

1. Each of the 8 lights should light up throughout the test (not all at the same time) on each the main tester and the secondary unit
2. The lights should follow a numerical sequence (1-8) on each part of the tester.

When testing check first all lights on each end light up. Next check the sequence on each end – first check the outlet and then check the RJ45 end.

You can follow this procedure for each cable:

1. Choose your cable standard
   There are 2 Network Standards for cables – choose one and stick with it. 
2. Install the back box for the outlet.
3. Follow the pin guidelines on the Network outlet or module.
4. Follow the Industry Standard for the RJ45 end for the switch end.
5. Use a network tester to confirm each pin.
6. Fix the outlet to the back box.

Do this for each port and cable until your ports are all installed. Once this is all done you can connect your router to your switch and then start ensuring that the machines have Internet access and also (if required) can talk to each other.

Troubleshooting:

The Steps that I took for my issue was:

1. Plug in both ends of the Network Tester Tool – the Powered part connected to the Network Port with a patch cable and the second part connected to the RJ45 end at the switch.
2. Turn on the testing tool and watch at the outlet end that each of the 8 lights come on in turn.
3. Check the receiving end – if there are any problems you will notice it here with the sequence. If the sequence is out you will need to redo the cable. Using a table like the one above proves really helpful.
4. If you followed the correct mapping on the network outlet/module then it will probably be an issue with the RJ45 end – in which case use the outlet as the fixed point to test against. In the case of the table above only the right hand side should change.
5. Make a note of the order the pins go through the sequence (there is usually about a 1-2 second delay between testing all 8 pins). For example I found the order of my pins at the receiving end was: 2, 1, 3, 6, 5, 4, 8, 7.
6. Map the sequence against the coloured pins and then reconnect to an RJ45.

Other Resources:

Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable

Patch Cable Creation: http://www.make-my-own-house.com/cat-5-wiring-diagram.html

Jack Wiring how-to: http://www.make-my-own-house.com/rj45-wiring.html

About Ethernet Cables: http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ethernetcables.html

NOTE: you will notice that each of these pages show different wiring orders for Patch Cables and Network outlets – this is where things can get really messy if you're not careful. If you remember the two important tips, you should be fine:

1. Always follow an industry standard on an RJ45 Connection
2. Always follow the pin layout on the back of a network outlet/module

  This is a great home project which can be very rewarding when it all comes together and works. Enjoy!

  News just in on TechRadar…

Adam Hartley has reported that an initiative on helping us to keep our Keyboards, mice and workstations clean.  Dr. Hillary Jones (he of GMTV fame) is spearheading a campaign to highlight the germs located around our work areas.

The story can be located here: TV doctor slams germ-riddled keyboards | News | TechRadar UK

I’ve seen a few broadcasts of Dr Hillary on the telly and he seems a pretty level-headed guy – he certainly doesn’t get caught up in hype and over-sensationalise stories.

As at today we are in the middle of Computer Cleaning Week (warning – Site has sound on page load so check your speakers!) which has a lot of info around what is lurking on our tech as well as how to clean it.  It is worth thinking about and considering what could be on your keyboards.

With my gaming hat on you have to wonder what germs are currently residing on my 360 Controllers.  Time to get the Dettol out methinks…

There’s a new version of Microsoft’s Live Writer available.  It is currently a technical refresh so be aware that things might go wonky…

New in this version is a new set of Tabs for looking at various views (Edit, Preview and Source), improved imaging tools, and lightbox is now supported.  If we could get multiple category selections then I would be a happy bunny.

Pickup, install and enjoy at: Live Writer Tech Prev

The UK Microsoft Online store is now available for people to purchase software direct from Microsoft.  There's a few things on there now (Vista, Office, Expression) and hopefully there will be more to come.

Microsoft Store - Home

Just a quick post here, but none the less an important one.  I confess I'm coming late to this, but the concept it great.  Every time you IM (instant message someone) you can generate money for a really good cause, whether it be Unicef, the Red Cross, or other charities.  All you have to do is add a code next to your display name and away you go.

Please follow the link below for more details as well as instructions on how to set this up.  If you use IM regularly (or even sporadically!) then you should do this.  It doesn't take a couple of seconds to choose and paste in the code, and it then has no effect on your usage from that point on.

i’m MAKING A DIFFERENCE

  I thought the world had officially gone crazy after Engadget reported Fruity smelling USB sticks, but I have been proven wrong again by the man who has had the XP BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) tattooed on his arm... note from the link below that it took the WHOLE OF HIS ARM to record the error message! 

Just hope it doesn't get infected... 

Man gets BSOD message tattooed on his arm - Engadget

 Whilst doing my usual rounds of reading through Blog entries from numerous sources, I came across an interesting entry on Patrick Tisseghem's SharePoint Blog about the 'best search ever..'. Being a SharePoint nut and currently going through the pain of enterprise search this obviously appealled.

The search in question in Ms. Dewey - don't panic, this is a good, clean family blog!  (having said that check out the PS3 undressed link... Sony fanboy's everywhere are crying)  It basically used the Live search, with a fvery different front-end and some flash to pull up the results (hey, I never said it was DDA compliant!). 

It's interesting to see the interface changed in this way, and could be interesting to see in times to come.  Future searching, may be a face to face experience, and DDA compliancy could be achieved through speaking as opposed typing.

Food for thought...