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Hi
I'm thinking of converting an old pc I have into streaming media server. What's the maximum practical distance before I start getting issues? I forgot to mension it's standard 100mbps wired ethernet
Edited by deleted (Sun 31-Oct-10 21:58:20)
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100Mbps over 100metre of CAT5e should be possible.
NOTE: If the 100 is not possible the drop is to 10Mbps - there is nothing inbetween
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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IIRC the "up to 100m" is for a single cable length - so you could run 100m to a switch & then another 100m to further equipment (another PC or whatever).
"If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders."
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The CSMA/CD standard requires not more than 100m in any single cable segment (unrepeated cable) and not more than 3 cable segments as the longest path between devices in an un-switched network.
If you ignore the standard you can go farther, but not by much. I've seen a 10meg connection run happily on a 110m cable, but not any further than that (and note I do mean a 10 meg link and as MrSaffron says there is nothing between 10meg and 100meg)
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What he said, when you go past 100m you hit timing issues and are boned even if the cable is excellent quality with low loss and crosstalk. The data just can't get from one side of the cable to the other fast enough 
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In most homes it's quite easy to keep within the 100m restriction with a little forward planning on where your core switch is, and maybe the occassional carefully-placed Whopping Big Hole through a wall or two.
Unless you live in some ancient grand hall I'd be quite surprised if you can't reach, at worst with a two-node arrangement, and a Gb link between the two.
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I've seen 100Mbps ethernet work happily at 120m on cat5e and 10Mbps work at well over 150m but I wouldn't recommend it if you can avoid it!
As shtu says, there aren't many houses where you're going to need a single run of over 100m, I cabled a 15,000 sq ft house a couple of years ago and I even managed to do that with only two concentration points.
My house is 3,500 sq ft and my longest cable run is less than 30m - but the cabling did go in before the ceilings went up and the walls were plastered, which made routing very simple.
 Comms is hard |
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I have seen ethernet run (and working) over a single cable length many hundreds of meters long.
(although I can not comment on the acheived speed, because they were only looking at small webpages).
Line One:- Zen - DrayTek Vigor 2600VG
Line Two:- EntaNet - DrayTek Vigor 2600
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I'm not sure there is a practical cable length limit if you don't need collision detect, i.e. point-to-point Ethernet over twisted pair.
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I have been successfully using CAT5 cable upto 100m. Absolutely no issues.
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I can see this is turning into who's got the longest CAT 5e cable?
Yeah well..... Who installs CAT5e nowerdays anyway? lol
CAT6 FTW or Fibre if you can splice your own... and find good quality media converters
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Who still installs Cat5e? Most corporates in my experience.
Comms is hard
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Cat6 is a pain to work with.
Cat6 STP needs proper earthing, or the shielding can act as an antenna for all the local RFI and create more problems than it solves.
Cat6 UTP has a larger minimum bend radius than fibre, and is more sensitive to damage from cable ties.
If you're going to go to that trouble you may as well go for cat 7 or fibre.
Otherwise Cat5e is suitable unless you want a long gigabit link.
If you're going to the expense of putting in 10 gig or faster then you may as well put fibre in.
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