Cat5e or Cat6 cable?

[Steves32]

I've totally given up on wireless in my house. I'm convinced all wireless router companies are a bunch of liars regarding signal strength & distance. Hell- I can't even get my TV to shake hands 70 ft away & through 1 wall. Forget the garage! I'm on my 4th expensive wireless router now- I give up!
So now- I'm running ethernet cable. F- them.
Main run to home theater room is about 100 ft by the time you fish 2 walls & route through the attic.
I have a 100 ft pre-termnated roll of Cat5e from Home Depot & a roll of Cat6 from Lowes. Not a big price dfference.
I have cable internet which is about 50 mbps on a good day.

1. Should I run Cat5e or Cat6?
2. If I run Cat6- should all my patch cords (3) from my hub (Netgear FS605) in HT room (TV, Blu-ray, sat box) also be Cat6?
3. My modem is in my office- coax in, ethernet out. That is hooked up to my wireless router about 2 ft away which then has 2 cat5e cables to 2 computers. I have 2 spare ethernet ports on my router. Should I run the Cat6 from my wireless router or install an ethernet splitter between the moden & router- taking the signal before the wireless router?

 

[cderalow]

If there's no to little cost difference, run cat 6. This will allow additional bandwidth in the future.

 

[Dhughes]

I would just go cat 5e. Cat 6 is a over kill for sure, as you can run a gig over 5e. just run a drop from your router to a second wireless router in the shop and you will be good to go.

 

[JMcFly]

cat 6 for sure if its cheap enough.

1000ft on amazon(prime shipping) is $124

but if your building code calls for cat 6 plenum then its pretty much double the cost.

But since its for a home and you're not going to have miles and miles of the stuff I bet the regular stuff is cleared for home use.

 

[info2x]

I run cat 6. It's not much more than 5e and will last longer from a demand standpoint. Don't worry about your patch cables unless you're buying/making new ones.

 

[r_olson_06]

Cat 6 is better than Cat 5e but Cat6 usally cost more. If you don't mind the extra cost use Cat 6. and use cat 6 patch cords would be best. Not for sure on singal lost numbers but i was always told and done to take the cable out of the modem to the e-net switch(splitter) then out of there to the router. Come out of the switch for the TV, Blue Ray, ect

 

[ccm399]

You will be fine with CAT5e. You can run gigabit through CAT5e as well as CAT5e.

I do VoIP phones for a living and to me honest I have only one install on CAT6 wire. CAT6 wire has a tighter (ie more) twist to the pairs and there is some form of isolator in the wire to keep the pairs from touching.... Better shielding basically. If you go CAT6 the patch cables and wall jacks should be CAT6 otherwise no need for CAT6 in the run.

Wire the new runs to the wireless router.

Hope this helps.

Chris

 

[garboui]

also if you have a long distance to span that reaches to several devices that are relatively local to one another, adding another switch will eliminate a lot of redundant cable pulling.

+1 for cat6. its cost difference is negligible and will carry gigabit better over longer distances.

 

[Cryptic1911]

go with cat6, it's tighter wound, so it'll block interference better, and allow higher speeds over long distances

 

[Oggy]

Because you already purchased both, I'd go with the cat6 only because it's not pre-terminated. The ends may be a pain to fish through your walls, otherwise I'd use the cat5. After the modem I'd go to the router, then to your HT system. if you need additional outlets I would add a switch, after the router. the router will give your computer the ip address needed to connect to the internet. Switches can be added wherever you need additional plugs, you can add on in your HT room by adding a switch in that room instead of making 2,3, or even 4 runs to accommodate all of your equipment.

 

[theoldwizard1]

The only thing worse than trying to fish pre-terminated Ethernet cable, is trying to PULL IT BACK !

If pulling back, wrap the the connector with some kind of tape to prevent the clip from catching on everything.

 

[Steves32]

The Cat6 roll is about 5 bux more than the roll of Cat5e- price difference is moot.
Both rolls of Cat5e & Cat6 are factory pre-terminated.
Fishing is no problem- I already drilled 2- 1" holes in top plates at each end & cut in plastic boxes (not installed yet) so getting the ends down the wall are no problem.
I haven't bought the 3 patch cables yet but they will also be pre-terminated.
Price on the patch cables difference is hardly worth worrying about. Remember- I'm the guy w/ 3 extra routers!
If I connect the Cat6 at my existing wireless router- do I really need the Netgear FS605 box or just a hub?
Here's what I bought.
ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/FS605v3_FS608v3_NAInstallGuide.pdf

Sales guy at Radio Shack said I needed this to "boost" my signal. Probably sold a bill of goods again.

 

[kellymc]

I'd go cat 6 for the reason that you can run HDMI video over 2 pair of cat6 lines, therefore pull more cable than you think so that you can stream HD video through your house

 

[Steves32]

I'd go cat 6 for the reason that you can run HDMI video over 2 pair of cat6 lines, therefore pull more cable than you think so that you can stream HD video through your house

So now I should run 2 cat6 cables?

I had it temp run across the floor (borrowed the cable from a friend temp) over the weekend & I was streaming HD dollby 5.1 through 1 cable. What am I missing?

 

[Dhughes]

I'd go cat 6 for the reason that you can run HDMI video over 2 pair of cat6 lines, therefore pull more cable than you think so that you can stream HD video through your house

You are better off with the 5e for HDMI. Should be no need for Plenum either. Unless your house and or shop use the attic space for the AC return air. If its duct you are fine with PVC.

 

[Steves32]

Plan was no conduit- PVC or otherwise & staple it in the attic to rafters.
This is not commercial- it's at my home. All ressy.

 

[sirsloop]

Go cat5e... More flexible, easier to work with. Cat 6 is totally unnecessary.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

We just finished (last Friday) wiring the office with new cable, switches, patch panels, wall jacks and patch cables. For the difference in price, it was a no brainer running cat 6 instead of 5e. Our main runs are not pre terminated (bulk cable) but the 32 drops we did ran about $250 more than running 5e.

 

[NewLogik]

You'll be fine going with Cat5e, it's the standard cable we use almost anywhere... There's no need for Cat6, I'll use Cat6 if you wanted to run some HDMI over ethernet or some others things like that, otherwise at 100ft, we don't have to expect any bandwith issues or bad signal quality...

You should get ether a switch or access point at your garage. That way you can have a wireless for yourself and your guests in the garage. If you need any ideas on models, etc.. let me know !

No conduit for home is fine, just keep in mind to run your cat5e away from electrical cables and neons if there's any. If you need to, don't worrie it should be fine anyways.

Btw, really nice garage and I'm jealous of your cabinets and mostly the SS drawers under your workbench on the toolboxes wall

Anyways, send me a PM if I can be of any help.

 

[Steves32]

My fingers are too fat & my eyes too weak to deal with terminating the ends on those tiny wires. Then I'd have to buy new tools for a 1 time job.
For the garage- I'll probably run one of my wireless routers out to my existing garage right next to the new garage- shared wall- Install the wireless there. Not a prority now- the home theater in the house is the priority.

 

[FreddiFiche]

My 2 cents, which is what I did, so of course I think its the right way.

Go Cat6. You can get gig speeds out of Cat5e, you'll have more margin to do so with Cat6. The tighter twists, and separator inside the cable give alot more noise rejection. I have never seen a perfect cable run, especially when your adding cable to a finished house. You will have more parallel runs with AC lines than you typically will with new construction. For the nominal cost adder for bulk Cat6, why not leave some margin for noise, and future proofing. Use Monoprice.com. (No, i do not work for them, just a long time customer.) You can get any color you wish, for the same price. I went for red to make it easy to distinguish with the Cat3 cable that was used for phone line in my home.

To the Cat5e pushers....I bet a decade ago, I bet they said that Cat3 was PLENTY.

 

[lh4x4]

I went with Cat5 to the back of the garage which is metal as no wireless would go through a metal building with metal doors and no windows. The line was right at 100 feet.

Runs a computer and TV in the garage, seven computers and five V's in the house. System has performed great for five years now.
Mediacom has 20 gb/sec service in this area and works great.

I get an itch to go wireless every now and then for the house but when I check the cost for all the antennas alone I see no benefit. I'll just wait until I'm done with my computer building hobby and get down to one. Then I may reconsider.

 

[montero1dfw]

I would go with cat 6. You can get it from www.monoprice.com for an incredibly cheap price. I have been buying electronic cables from them for a few years now. They ship very fast and their cable quality is good.
PS. I am in no way affiliated with them. I just think they are a great place to get cables from.

mike

 

[david594]

I went with Cat5 wire when I did the network in my parents house back 15 years ago.

Now I'd go with Cat6 for anything designed to be a semi-permanent install just to future proof my setup as best I can. For the minimal extra cost I think its worthwhile.

 

[indy500canada]

Hey

I work for a phone company Sask-Tel

Of course cat 6 is better but cost is a concern. The Cat 5 is rated above the 50 meg you say you can get on a good day anyway. I doubt you will notice any difference in computer download performance.

And any HD streaming will work fine.

The signal to your home, connections and patch cords as well as installation( you said you will staple them.... DO NOT PINCH THE CAT 6!!!!!) all have more influence than the difference between cat 6 and 5.

IMHO

 

[shoturtle]

Cat5e is actually faster then cat6. We were testing in to gige circuits. And the cat5e has the faster throughput. Some of these test length were 300ft.

Ps cat6 is a pain to crimp properly

 

[Steves32]

My stapler is an Arrow T59 that shoots insulated staples. I use it at work for running low voltage HVAC wire. Doesn't damage the wire.

 

[sirsloop]

Its not like we're operating a data center here. Even if we were, you STILL would not need cat6.

http://www.networkcablingdirectory.com/articles/structured-network-cabling-id_1151.htm

I've run thousands of computers doing continuous throughput upwards of 800Mbps each on cat5e in a densely populated data center. Even in that type of environment cat6 was not necessary.

This all goes back to the whole "bigger number must be better" thing. Whats better than cat5? cat6!!! Whats better than cat6? CAT7!! duh

 

[jonzer12]

You could install both and never know the difference. Unless you are planning on
10G-BaseT in the future cat5 is fine.

 

[Steves32]

If anything- this has certainly been educational!
I'll run the Cat6 since I have both & return the other unopened roll of Cat5e.
If all I had was the Cat5e- I'd run that.

 

[1991Syclone]

With respect to the wireless signal issues, what channel is your wireless router broadcasting on? I'm in a similar boat as you. I switch to Verizon and they provided their own "special" wireless router with the cable/phone/internet package. I call it special because without it the on screen TV guide won't download information for some reason.

I have two wireless media devices that I use to stream from my Windows7 box to two different televisions. I couldn't for the life of me get either to see the wireless router when it was first set up. I could see the router with my laptop, iPad, cell phones, etc.

Looking at the wireless settings on the router end, by default they are told to "auto select" a wireless channel. Sometimes the channel it selects will cause issues with devices being able to see it. I manually switched to either channel 6 or 11 and voila, both devices can see the router and stream hi def movies over wireless N without a problem.

I still want to wire the house (and have a roll of CAT6 that I bought from Amazon), but the need isn't dire any more. I prefer to run in wired mode, but if I can get wireless to function in the interim I buy myself some time to plan things out better.

 

[BHR4CE1]

Using the Cat6 is a great choice. It's all about future proofing. We ran CAT6 EVERYWHERE in my home and garage. I have so much data going through that cable and I never have any issues. Make sure all your switches are fast enough not to bog down the signals. If you plan on being in your home for 5 years or longer...CAT6 is the way to go...especially since the cost is about the same.

 

[BFBOB]

I feel your pain re: wireless. Residential is worse, I think because of large HVAC ducts inside walls. Getting your WAP's as high as possible (top shelf of the pantry) helps, but sometimes there's just nothing for it.

A few Ethernet cable installation notes: In your attic, even if you see no signs of critters, get that wire up off the floor! (uh.. top of the ceiling) Dont leave it lying on the insulation; sling it from the trusses, and don't use staples. Use drive rings, screwed-on plastic p-straps or the like. Otherwise, sooner or later, something will chew on it, and they seem to like the smaller low-voltage cables better than Romex.
Pay particular attention to bend radius. The MINIMUM bend radius is 4 times the cable diameter, so don't make a 90 degree turn over one little drive ring. You can use two drive rings a couple of inches apart to get your 90's, and though that strictly speaking violates the bend radius, it's never caused a problem for me. There are large J-hooks that have smooth, rounded 3 or 4 inch diameter bends, but we only use them for large bundles of cables.
Be very careful how you pull the cable. Pulling too hard around a corner can compress, skin in sulation and otherwise damage the cable. It's rated for a 25 lb pull, but it takes a lot less than that to damage it going around the sharp edges of a hole drilled through a 2x4. Don't try to stretch the stuff as tight as a banjo string to make it neat. A little slack and droop is good, especially around corners. Secure with ty-raps, but just tight enough to hold. And, if at all possible, use continuous lengths, but it sounds like you have that one covered.
A little attention to these details, and your 100' Cat5 cables will indeed perform to Cat6 specs, and Cat6 will be stellar. That's always the case with our certified installations. We nearly always have to use plenum cable, so there's a significant price difference. With the price so nearly the same for the riser cable you need, I'd go with Cat6, mostly because the internal spline between the pairs makes it harder to damage mechanically during installation.

 

[ADaughen]

If anything- this has certainly been educational!
I'll run the Cat6 since I have both & return the other unopened roll of Cat5e.
If all I had was the Cat5e- I'd run that.

I'd return both and get a spool of either for probably 1/4 the price per foot.

I did a 100' Cat5e run for my dad for ~$12 where he was going to pay closer to $75 from a box store.


I bought 2000' bulk for ~$240 shipped, sold 1/2 to a friend and have been using the rest ever since. Double drops for all the bedrooms, should have done a double for the living room (settled for a 5-port gigabit switch). I have a 24-port patch panel in the 'comms center' a 10/100/1000 Wireless-N router.

Still working on filling my 96U rack.



ETA: BFBOB has some really good info to save you the pain of tracking down a break and replacing and re-pulling hundreds of feet of cable. I had the "pleasure" of wiring a temp structure for 36 drops over a golf event weekend. Even with the ~$1000 Fluke meter testing before and after, we still had to pull more cable.

 

[Cryptic1911]

Always pull double runs, even if you don't need it. Never know when you'll get a broken one, or something chews a hole. Much easier to just swap wires than to dig up, or bust open a wall

 

[ra42mario]

I bought a Wireless N router for my shop. I have two buildings that are roughly 75ft apart. The router only had two walls to go through to connect the computers in the buildings and it could barely do that. We use MagicJack for our phone, so with a shaky wireless signal, the call quality was very poor.

I ran Cat5 from the top of the buildings to each other. Its only been a week but so far so good.

Wireless is great for convience but you need almost perfect surroundings for it to deliver.

 

[tomstin]

With all the labor involved in running cable, use the best cable you can afford. Cat6 will protect you a bit with future technology. Also, I always leave a pull string in the wall for every outlet. It seems I always need to run another cable there eventually. Once again, costs next to nothing in labor and materials but saves a lot of trouble down the road.

 

[FreddiFiche]

With all the labor involved in running cable, use the best cable you can afford. Cat6 will protect you a bit with future technology. Also, I always leave a pull string in the wall for every outlet. It seems I always need to run another cable there eventually. Once again, costs next to nothing in labor and materials but saves a lot of trouble down the road.

I agree, there is just not that much of a price difference between the two. As I, and someone else pointed to, use Monoprice. Great stuff, Great price.

The price difference between cat5e and cat6 for 1000' of whatever color you want is $25. (Cat5e is $80, Cat6 is $105)

The bigger cost saving will be on the extras...Wall Plates, Ports for plates, and cable ends if you decide to go that route. You can even get the low voltage remodel boxes there. On this stuff you will be typically a SMALL fraction of the price of a box store.

I can't imagine that you will probably need more than 1000' (I'm not a good judge, my house took 2000', due to many spare runs), so isn't having headroom worth $25?

 

[ADaughen]

I bought a Wireless N router for my shop. I have two buildings that are roughly 75ft apart. The router only had two walls to go through to connect the computers in the buildings and it could barely do that. We use MagicJack for our phone, so with a shaky wireless signal, the call quality was very poor.

I ran Cat5 from the top of the buildings to each other. Its only been a week but so far so good.

Wireless is great for convience but you need almost perfect surroundings for it to deliver.

Wireless works fine, IF you don't have a bunch of other stuff on the channel (2.4GHz wireless phones, baby monitors, etc etc) and no metal between you and the source. That includes mirrors and large wire runs. Even certain industrial paints will block signals.

75' should be cake walk for an unimpeded signal. I've gotten as far as 350'. Haven't had the need to test it any further. A co-worker is using a wireless extender and directional antennas to reach ~1000'.


My 1963 aluminum siding would even block cell phone signals from transmitting. Switch over to WiFi and I was able to send and receive calls. Now I have vinyl but I still like conserving minutes so WiFi stays on.

 

[jeffmoss26]

I personally have run miles of Cat5e. I see no real reason to run Cat6 unless it would be impossible to get new cables in a space after construction. Then again, I would just as soon put conduit everywhere to alleviate that, lol.
At school, they specified Cat6 for data and Cat3 for voice. All of the data goes to patch panels, and the voice goes to 66 blocks. My beef is that they put 8 pin jacks in for voice, and people always plugged their computers in...oops!