Hi,

I'm hoping that someone can help me out because I'm really puzzled by this:

Fed up wi-fi drop outs, poor reception, etc I decided to run a CAT 5E cable from my office on the first floor to the lounge on the ground floor at the opposite side of the house.

The easiest way that i could see was to take the cable into the loft, across then down the outside of the house and back in behind the TV. All that was fine and I terminated the cable with standard plugs, tested it which worked fine but it will not work as an ethernet cable! It's not by any mains power (but near coax TV & cable internet) and in total isn't more than 50m. I've tried different devices at both ends with different speeds - I get link integrity but no traffic. I've also re-ended it several times with no joy.

Can anyone please offer any advice?

that distance should be fine as cat 5e is good until 300ft. how did you test it? with a 4 pair tester? We use much more complex testers that test for EMI, Near end cross talk etc. All of those will heavily contribute to line problems. Did you use a jack or rj45 on the ends of the cable?

I just used a standard 4 pair tester which showed that they were all ok. I terminated with RJ45 connectors.

I would have thought that if there was interference it would still have worked to some degree?

make sure the pin outs are correct on both ends

Is it pinned as a straight through or crossover cable? Is there a hub/switch at one end?

It's pinned straight through with either a 10/100/1000 or 10/100 switch at one end and a Xbox or Xbox 360 at the other. Tried combinations or the above and also re-ending with different pairs on different pins (obviously the same at both ends). My basic cable tester always confirms that the cable is ok.

Network cable can be finicky, it may read continunity and still not pass ethernet reliably.

Make sure it is not pinched tight under a staple, kinked, or has any sharp bends in its entire run.

I moved & unpinned the cable as much as possible to remove any interference and decided to test with my laptop - bingo it worked!!! However it still won't work with either an Xbox or Xbox 360, both of which work fine plugged into the same switch when in my office!

At this point maybe its time for a basic ping test?

I'm not sure what you mean by "working". If you want to do a very basic test manually configure the xbox with an ip on your switch, say 192.168.0.100, netmask 255.255.255.0. Manually configure your laptop on the same switch- 192.168.0.101. On the laptop click start, run, type "cmd". In the command window ping the xbox by running "ping 192.168.0.100". That will at least tell you if the xbox is touching the network and some other variable is causing issues.

If you already know how to do all of this forgive me, this is the first thing i'd try if I was in your shoes.

Make sure your jacks are also 5e rated, I recently had a similar issue in an office that wasn't terminated correctly. (5e cable and 5 ends) Showed continuity, but wouldn't pass traffic. Spend the money on a tester that shows more than just continuity, they're worthless on so many levels.

cat5 ends will work on 5e cable and visa v but you are religated to the lower end. how is it pinned out on each side? if it works with the laptop it will work with the xbox as they require the same cable. one thing to consider if the xbox might be more sensitive. as for your wireless drop outs what router do you have? have you considered a access point to act as a repeater