Cat5e issues - easy to kill it?

That's pretty bizarre. I've found solid CAT6 to be fairly robust (in my use of it).

Electronics don't like water at all. Is the fish tank fresh or salt water?

Sounds more like you had a power event or a device failure that may or may not have been related. If the cable box got hit with a power spike or just decided it was a good day to die, could be that it took out the balun with it...

Test the baluns (both ends) with a short jumper cable to make sure they still work with known-good devices on both sides.

Jeff

To answer this question specifically: yes absolutely.

HDMI bandwidth can be much much higher than even gig ethernet.

When using category cable for HDMI, you should always use Cat6 if possible, and be particularly careful about following ALL the rules for data cabling. Never stable obviously, don't kink it, don't step on it or crush it, etc. All the basics, you just want to be extra careful because it can be difficult to get cat5e or cat6 to be certified as-installed just for gigabit ethernet, let alone HDMI which can be up to 10x that bandwidth.

Further, 10/100 ethernet only uses 2 of the 4 pairs. If your cable is shorted or damaged, you may still get perfectly acceptable internet on your laptop. The HDMI baluns most likely use all 4 pairs, most do anyway. If your network and your laptop NIC is gigabit capable, if you get gigabit connectivity you can at least ascertain that all 4 pairs are physically intact. This doesn't mean though, that the link will work for HDMI as well, however. But it's a simple way to test continuity anyway without a cable tester or a multimeter+breakout cable.

Lastly, I've never seen HDMI baluns that were working start to fail based on the cat cable, but I *have* seen that happen with straight HDMI cable. I have also seen HDMI baluns fail. HDMI is very finicky, and HDMI baluns particularly so.

I hope that helps, you may have to spend quite some time investigating/troubleshooting.

Also try troubleshooting the baluns themselves by using some short cat6 patch cables to ensure they still work as well. Also test power supplies to the baluns. Could be something as simple as a transformer/wallwart gone bad, which is an easy fix. Could be many things, unfortunately. Be methodical and thorough, good luck!

ugh. Programmers. That was bad advice. :/

Hey! I resemble that remark! Although I completely agree, I'd never recommend 5e over 6 in a job these days (or for the past, say, 3 years).

I'd check out the terminations. For data, I'd generally recommend using a punch-down connector of some sort (keystone or patch panel). With video, having as few connections as possible is usually better, but you really need to make sure your terminations are good. I'd try re-terminating one or both ends of the cable (assuming they're not punch-down's). Also, it is worth noting that there are different connectors for solid vs stranded wire. Most connectors you buy are for stranded, so if you have solid cable, be sure you have connectors for solid cable.