Two network sockets, one cable

jonnytabpni

Hi Everyone,

We have done a small install were we are letting 2 Cat5e sockets use a single cable (As 100Mbps only uses 2 pairs, leaving 2 spare).

In general, this works, however Dell PCs seem to have an issue where sometimes the link will drop, or it won't detect a link up for a few minutes.

Are we supposed to ground some of the unused pins?

Thanks

jimp

That is a bad, bad idea. Drop a cheap switch there and use a single fully wired cable to uplink from that switch.

You might have been able to split a drop like that for 10-base networks but with 100 and 1000, forget it.

jonnytabpni

Hi jimp,

I really do respect your comment, as you are very experienced in this area.

Can you please explain why this is a bad idea? I had a post on another forum, and my concern was crosstalk, however a few of the guys there said that shouldn't be an issue as you can get 24-pair network cable which is used for lots of sockets.

Thanks

jimp

Some info on here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_over_twisted_pair

But also:

You are having problems, so obviously it is not ideal for your situation (Could be cable quality, amount of the ends that got untwisted, crosstalk, etc, etc. Lots to go wrong, very little to go right)
Switches/Hubs are cheap and would be less problematic
If you want to expand in the future, you're stuck
If you want gigabit in the future, you need all four pairs
You seem to have forgotten the first rule of cable pulling (at least around here): Why pull one when you can pull two? :) Though that may be the fault of whoever originally ran the cable.