Posts tagged computer

If you follow me on Twitter ( @bradarsenault ) you may have noticed that I have posted photos nearly everyday about a new house. The house is almost done and the move-in date is next week; the final (occupancy permit) inspection was last week.

The house has been underway for the past 4.5 months and the contractors and crew have been awesome to work with and haven’t made any major mistakes, and they’re eager to correct the mistakes that have been made.  It has been an interesting experience — having to decide where a door should be, what height a window should be, where light switches should be, all without living in the home.  This is an awesome lesson in good user interface design (you think it sucks when an app’s UI sucks, imagine the UI you live in everyday sucking.) There were some goals that I’ve set aside, as I manage the connectivity in the house (that would be five computers, a handful — two at the moment — laptops, media playback devices — XBox, etc — with higher-bandwidth requirements, and an array of routers and switches to provide some segmentation).  My 5 goals for this project were:

1. Wire everything that isn’t mostly mobile.
2. Gigabit is a plus.
3. Central location for all network equipment that isn’t in a living space.
4. DIY — the electricians made it very clear they have nothing to do with data networking. Also DIY is more cost effective.
5. Unobtrusive & durable.  Outlets are better looking and more reliable long-term than simply run wire.

I think those goals were met.  On July 20 I ran tests and labeled each of the outlets in the utility closet with the room they run to, and confirmed each run (Cat5e, as that’s all electricians would allow me to use, because of building code) is working.

1. There are 7 runs (outside of the closet): one in each bedroom; one in the media room, den, great room, and kitchen.  Works great for all of the wired components of the network.
2. Gigabit is possible with Cat5e and the outlets I used.  The to-be-implemented network equipment will dictate this.  Currently I’m using my legacy dual Linksys WRT54G routers; one running Tomato router, the other running stock firmware to provide most compatible wireless – Tomato has given me trouble with wireless before; the second router is connect to the first using a standard ethernet cable from a LAN port to a LAN port.
3. All of the networking equipment will sit on a shelf in the utility closet.
4. The electricians ran the wire from the closet to each room in a specified location.  I terminated the ethernet myself.  I spent ~<$400 @ Home Depot for the tools and materials (1 impact punch down tool for $69, 1 termination coaster @ $2, 14 Cat5e modules @ $5.33 each, 3 single module face plates @ $3 each, 4 dual-module face plates @ $3.50 each, 1 three-module face plate @ $3.50, 4 dual keystone port wall mounts @ $4.95, 100ft of bulk Cat5e cable @ $25, Cat5e crimping tool & terminatoins @ $32.95, 50 Cat5e terminations @ $12.95).  This is a fraction of the cost this would have cost in 1995!  **fwiw — when wiring the ethernet terminations, I used the ‘B’ wiring guides.  In my research I concluded this is a more modern wiring standard, however both should work with modern hardware.
5. The faceplates look nice and clean.  Unlike phone jacks, ethernet has to be wired (at least in residential settings) using a module and faceplate.  The modules snap into holes in the faceplates to allow a myriad of combinations of connections including phone, coax, ethernet, RCA audio, HDMI, and more.  The module size is standardized.

Tests

As I’ve never terminated Ethernet before (without a professional near-by), it was certainly a gamble that any of this would work.  At the risk of shorting a Dell laptop and a WRT54G router, I used these for testing.  Unlike a $110+ professional test kit, this would provide real-world results in that not only are the pairs tested for electrical connectivity, but also the two terminations as a whole working (interference).  Every termination works, as do all of the ethernet cables I’ve crimped/made so far.  I’ve performed gigabit tests by linking two computers directly (by using a crossover cable between their ports in the utility closet) and it works (I didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t, but testing is better than not testing.)

Right now I’m writing/finalizing these blog posts using my wired ethernet to access the internet.  There is some pride knowing that I made this, and it works.  As we’re all moved in I have a lot more to write about, including my new office space, the time of day electrical power meter (coming soon, not yet installed), and the global connectivity issue.