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  1. #1
    Relic Shield
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    Networking a house.

    So I'm moving back in with my mother (financial reasons for us both) and need to figure out how to get internet to my mother/brother (upstairs west side of house) and myself/girlfriend (basement east side of house) knowing that wireless in this circumstance is pretty subpar for either party. My brother is mentally challenged and is on his computer unless he's sleeping, and I'm...on an MMO forum...so yeah. I used to just run a 100' cable from upstairs all the way downstairs and had two routers, but my mother is adamant about not having any cables showing, and I gave that cable away anyway. So I was thinking about officially wiring the house, and need help with things such as: Which cable to use (cat 5e or 6?) and whether I should do this myself or find someone to do it for me.



    That's a pretty rough sketch of the top floor, without doors plugged in. In the basement my "living room" is essentially where the master bedroom is, so that's where my computers will likely be setup. My plan is to go for Cat 6 cabling to "future proof" the house, but may want to use 5e for costs anyway. I've done some basic cabling work in an A+/Network+ course I took in high school, but crimping wasn't exactly my specialty, so I'm a little worried about that. Also, I have NONE of the tools for this job.

    My plan was to setup the box in the "linen closet", take cables up into the attic and shove them down to each room there, then try to shove a cable or two all the way down into the basement, that wall with the linen closet aligns with where the water heater/furnace is in the basement, which is not insulated and somewhat "open" so no holes would need to be made on that end. I could probably get by without having to hide the cables that get into the basement, too. Then I just find some network jacks and I have networked my house, roughly, right?

    So aside from which cable to use, is this too much for someone who has never really done something like this before? How much do you think this would cost me? (let's say 4 rooms upstairs and 1 downstairs) professionally or just in parts/sanity? And should I just shove one cable all the way downstairs and split them, or should I send 2-3?

  2. #2
    Ranger
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    if you fully run cable, one to each room, you will increase the value of the house (if you dont do a shitty job of it)
    if you want a not as expensive and a ton easier system, use the powerline adapters

  3. #3
    Relic Shield
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    Yeah I had heard about the powerline adapters while looking up some info about this project. One person says "noise" can really mess with them and sometimes they're not that great with speeds. But if I went that way I'd just plug routers into each one and connect to my routers with all the computers? Amazon has a pair of those things for $39.99 free shipping and I can't say that doesn't sound pretty nice as a solution to this issue.

  4. #4
    I Am, Who I Am.
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    Cost of professional? No idea, but prob a little pricey.
    Cost of doing it yourself? Cost of materials + time.

    The materials arent that expensive. 1000ft cat6 will run you around 100 or so. Crimper, wallplates, terminals, fishtape, etc, prob another 100.
    The hard part is running it.

    If your lazy you can just do what you mention and find holes and buy premade wire.. but do yourself a favor a learn how to run wire through finished walls and put a bit of effort in to it.
    Crimping is easy, just google a chart and hope your hands dont cramp.

    As Sono said it will increase value of the house, and just make everything so much simplier.
    Also, instead of running just 1 cable to each wall plate, do at least 2 at minimum. Why do all that work for just one jack? Hell, do 3 or 4.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by SephYuyX View Post
    Also, instead of running just 1 cable to each wall plate, do at least 2 at minimum. Why do all that work for just one jack? Hell, do 3 or 4.
    Yah. I don't freaking understand why we don't do this at work. It provides long-term flexibility and a backup in case the line (admittedly rarely) fails.

  6. #6
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    Working in home appraisals, it won't increase the value of your home. There's simply way too many pre-internet generation old folks who simply don't give a damn about that feature to give a house monetary value for it as though it would matter to a large enough portion of buyers (there's also a couple reasons else wise but thats not the point of this thread). It would definitely matter and would definitely be a marketable feature to bring up though if pitching the home for a sale in the future to people like us cause it certainly would be desirable to BGers.

    That being said, ~2.5 years ago when I moved back to my parents after college I managed to thread an ethernet cable into the attic from the basement router (2 floors) by dropping a paper clip tied to the end of a string with some putty around it for weight and then wrapping the paper clip around the cable in the basement and pulling it back up through to the attic so get your Mcgeyver on and have at it.

  7. #7
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    Depending on how you go for it, it shouldn't cost more that 200 dollars before routers and such. You could even run a conduit, either 1 1/2 or 2 inch, right in the wall if your able to and save yourself the headache of having to Mcgeyvor anything.

  8. #8
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    If you're going to take the trouble to run cables and wire up wall-mounted jack plates, always run two lines. It doesn't take any extra time and allows a ton more flexibility; for example, you can move the router to any room in the house if need be.

    I had a local handyman run cat6 under my house (Cali, no basement) to 5 rooms with a master plate in my office a few years ago for about $200 (including wall plates). There's no substitute for not having to use wireless on things that are not portable.

  9. #9
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    Cat5e is fine. Run it where you can, for where you can't, there's power line ethernet modules that I've used and work pretty well.

  10. #10

    Cat5e will serve you well. As most of Telecommunication provider use in Structured Cabling, Voice And Data Cabling, T1 Installation Services for Internet and other services. You can run flat cables under carpet if there is no space in walls.


    User was infracted for this post.

  11. #11
    Sea Torques
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    The powerline adapters mentioned here are an "ok" solution, depending on the wiring in your house and the quality of the adapter. My router and modern are upstairs in my home and I was having signal issues downstairs for my PS4. Using one of the powerline adapters have me about the same overall speed with a slightly better connection strength. I ended up pointing my router at the floor and getting better performance with that.

    Even with that, I decided to run cable. I hate running writes through finished walls, but the strength and stability is better enough that it is worth the trouble. Suggestions:

    1. If you can, run the wires on interior walls. Dropping wires through insulation makes me want to murder the universe.
    2. Use Category 6 if you plan to live there for a while and believe internet speeds will increase or want to stream things from a central media server. Cat5e is good enough, but 6 has improvements related to inference, crosstalk, and speed. Doing file transfers at the maximum speed supported by your network card is sexy.
    3. Test the wires before and after you run then.
    4. Run multiple wires at a time (which was mentioned above, but is important enough to mention again). It isn't strictly necessary, but it can save you a lot of time in the future.
    5. Learn how to wire before starting. I don't know how familiar you are with this sort of work, but planning what you're going to do and then executing it will make the process easier. You wouldn't believe how many times I've seen someone cut a hole for an outlet and run the wire on the wrong side of a stud.

    Having a wired house makes connecting desktops, consoles, and etc. so much easier and nicer. If you have the time and ability, I can't recommend it enough.

  12. #12

    Fucking godamnit. I got to the part about Paper Clip and Puddy and immediately yelled "Wait a minute I've read this shit before, the Fuck!" :scroll down: /banned poster.

    Good try though Tidane.

  13. #13
    Sea Torques
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    Fucking TAPATALK with images turned off.

    O well.

  14. #14
    E. Body
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    Get one of those mice they train to run electrical wires through walls and shit.

    But in all seriousness, like previous posters have mentioned, run cables where possible and when not possible use powerline adapters. I use them and they're pretty great. All depends on the age of your lines though of course.

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