You would be correct to assume alarm engineer. I have used Cat 6 cable and not alarm cable! That is shocking how someone would do that.

I have used the T568A standard.

1. White/Orange
2. Orange
3. White/Green
4. Blue
5. White/Blue
6. Green
7. White/Brown
8. Brown

I've checked the numbers on the IDC's/switches are correct.

In reply to a post by RLG:

You would be correct to assume alarm engineer. I have used Cat 6 cable and not alarm cable! That is shocking how someone would do that.

I have used the T568A standard.

1. White/Orange
2. Orange
3. White/Green
4. Blue
5. White/Blue
6. Green
7. White/Brown
8. Brown

I've checked the numbers on the IDC's/switches are correct.

You would be surprised to see how often Alarm cable is used for phone and (occasionally) network connections - mainly because it is cheap.


The pinout you have listed is actually T568B - which is the preferred one these days.



For reference 568A is actually.

1. Wh/Gn
2. Gn
3.Wh/Or
4. Bl
5. Wh/Bl
6. Or
7. Wh/Br
8. Bn

How long are the runs?

Can you make up a shorter one from the patch panel to a socket of the same type - with say 2m of cable and try that out. Then try with 10m and then 25m. At least you can then work locally to panel and socket.

Assume this is solid core cable and not stranded?

Can you get some decent pictures of the back of the RJ45 jacks at both patch panel and remote sockets. Host them on a suitable site and then provide links to here.

If you have two sockets at a remote location, link them together and then, at the patch panel, try a cable tests and see what the result is.


Does your laptop/PC have a network cared test facility? Broadcom for example include one in their control suite software which allows testing the connection and the cable including Distance. In my case the PC reports the length and I can also use my switch to do the same in the other direction and the lengths match within a reasonable tolerance.


When you punched down the IDC connections, did you ensure everything was fully home - a double punch is often best.

Edited by MHC (Tue 10-Feb-15 15:05:57)

It is solid core cable and they have been punched fully home, as this was not with all of them in the first place which showed up when testing. I went back over myself to double punch these.

When I'm next on site I will try to get some decent pictures for you. I will also try the different lengths in cable next to the patch panel, this would then ascertain whether the sockets are good.

By the looks of it I only have a DW WLAN card utility on this Dell laptop.

What is the maximum distance for a cat 6 cable run?

Have a look under Control Panel on te Dell, there may be a set of Broadcom utilities.

Max length for Cat6 is 100m - normally specified as 90m of solid infrastructure cable and 7m of patch cables. yes it is 97 , however teh 100m is based on solid core and not stranded which has around 1/3 greater attenuation thereby reducing 10m to 7m

Can't find Broadcom utilities, is this something I can download?

Some of the points which are not working are the closest ones less than 10m away.

If you have a Broadcom network card they are normally pre-installed.


There has to be a fundamental reason why even short distances are not working.

What is your EXACT set up? Something like:

Socket >> RJ11Cable >> Modem >>RJ45/Cat6 PatchCable >> Router >> RJ45/Cat6 Patch Cable >> Switch >> Many Patch Cables >> Patch Panels >> Infrastructure Wiring >> Remote RJ45 Sockets >> Patch Cable >> PC

What devices do you have? How many patch panels and switches?

if using a laptop on battery, also worth ensuring that any power save modes are disabled. Have been caught out with HP laptops in the past that would power down the Ethernet and you needed to disable/enable it to make it come back alive when running on battery.

Good Point - On a Dell there is an option to turn the Ethernet port off when running on battery depending on Power Mode. It can be accessed through the Dell QuickSet utility.

Although working on alarm installs I would have thought it would be enabled on battery to allow connection to the installation.