Cat6E Shorting

DIY_Johnny · 19-02-2011, 21:28

Hi all, happy to be here!
my first post so hope someone can help.

I have wired up flat with cat 6E cables. I have bought a network cable tester and found that there is a short between pins 4 &5 (blue cable and Blue with white bands) I confirmed with my multimeter that there is continuity between these two cables.

I am so annoyed with myself that I didn't test this earlier as now I have a wood floor down and not possible to take it up

My question is: do I need all 8 cables for an ethernet connection, i.e. tyo connect my PC to a SKY modem for example

Running a new cable means surface mounting which really will look awful

Many thanks all

qasdfdsaq · 19-02-2011, 21:43

I'm not sure what Cat6E actually is, I only know of Cat5E and 6A. Either way, you don't need all cables for it to work.

Only four out of 8 conductors are used for anything up to 100mbps ethernet. For 1000mbps (1 gigabit) and 10Gigabit, you need all 8. 10/100mbps only needs pin 1,2,3,6. However, autonegotiation of the devices means you might have to set devices at both ends to 100mbps manually if both are gigabit capable (they're not always good at detecting cable capabilities).

I don't think there are any gigabit capable Sky boxes so you should be fine.

DIY_Johnny · 19-02-2011, 22:13

Hi qasdfdsaq,

apologies its CAT6, I know very little about this subject, was thinking of CAT5E originally and decided to use CAT6 afterwards (not sure why but was cheap enough for a drum of it!)

So looks like good news as I read it. Do you think that I can just use my modem / router, TV and PC and so forth without any trouble. What for example would be a 1 gigabit device be? Forgive my ignorance of these things. Reading up at the moment!

Thanks for your response by the way

qasdfdsaq · 19-02-2011, 23:01

A gigabit device would just be anything that has a 1000mbps network card in it instead of a 10/100 one; they're common on newer computers but not so much on other things (routers, TV's, etc.). There's no way to tell for sure without looking at the spec sheet of the device. In most homes you'd find a combination of both.

You should be fine just plugging it in and seeing what happens, it should just work really.