Network Cabling Issue

Hi Everyone,

I was just talking with my sister who has setup a home LAN. She has 4 computers on it, sharing out her cable modem connection. They are using the Linksys BEFSR4 router.

Basically what they did was moved one of the PC's to another room and now this PC cannot surf the Internet. They can share files / printers etc, but for some reason this PC cannot get out to the internet.

Nothing has changed configuration wise on the PC, according to her. All they did was move the PC and run a new length of wire from the PC to the router.

The only thing I have come up with was maybe they have exceeded the maximum length allowed for a CAT5 segment, which is I know is 100 meters (328 feet). She says that she thinks the new segment is around 600-700 feet which is way over the limit.

Does anyone think that this could be the case here? Or should I have her check some other things? I do think that the cable is to long and that the cable modem signal isn't strong enough to reach her PC.

If anyone has any answers to this problem, I'd greatly appreciate it.

That's WAY too long! It surprises me that she's able to access the other computer's files if the cable is really that long.

The first thing I'd do is physically move the computer to one of the other computers' stations and try the internet from there, that'll tell you right away whether it's something you need to look for on the PC or if it's just the cable.

i wanna see the house where one room is 700 feet away.

man..that took up almost a whole roll of cable!!!:D

Quote:

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Originally posted by nytiger73
Hi Everyone,

I was just talking with my sister who has setup a home LAN. She has 4 computers on it, sharing out her cable modem connection. They are using the Linksys BEFSR4 router.

Basically what they did was moved one of the PC's to another room and now this PC cannot surf the Internet. They can share files / printers etc, but for some reason this PC cannot get out to the internet.

Nothing has changed configuration wise on the PC, according to her. All they did was move the PC and run a new length of wire from the PC to the router.

The only thing I have come up with was maybe they have exceeded the maximum length allowed for a CAT5 segment, which is I know is 100 meters (328 feet). She says that she thinks the new segment is around 600-700 feet which is way over the limit.

Does anyone think that this could be the case here? Or should I have her check some other things? I do think that the cable is to long and that the cable modem signal isn't strong enough to reach her PC.

If anyone has any answers to this problem, I'd greatly appreciate it.

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WOW! are you sure it's 6 to 700 ft?????

if so,,that would be it,

if it is shorter than that,the only other thing I have ran into is the pinouts at each end,
it has to be done this way or it won't work,especially on long runs.

and btw,if it's really 700ft,thats one hell of a house! :)

Yeah I know it seems kind of crazy that the house is that big, but it is. But we did figure out that its not a cabling issue. We tried another PC on the same run of cable and everything worked out fine. So now its figuring out what on the PC thats not working is causing the issue.

My guess would be protocols.

Move the PC back to the original location with a normal
length (<100 Meters cat5) cable. If it works, the excess
cable length is at fault, and you must add a hub or
preferably a switch, after each segment up to 100 M.
You can cut the cable after 95 M, say, and reterminate
it and put the switch there. Reterminate the other
end of the cut and you have extended the length
legally. You need yet another cut + switch if it
is actually 700 feet, since 100M is 328 Feet, and 700 feet
is longer than two runs of 100M.

If the PC no longer works, try start->run->winipcfg
and drop down to the ethernet card, more info, and
then release, then renew. Now check the internet
and if it works, ok, done. If not, try ping on the LAN
address of the router, often 192.168.1.1 or somesuch.
You can find the router address from another machine
if needed. If you can't ping, your TCP/IP is dead, and
must be removed and reinstalled/reconfigured. Sometimes
there are more subtle problems, such as ATT giving your
router a lease for 1 hour instead of 4 days. These can be
tricky to get around. You can power off cable/dsl modem
and router. Turn c/d modem back on, wait until the
connection syncs up, then power on router. Re-start a PC
or do the winipcfg (or ipconfig on NT-based OS) and
release/renew on the ethernet adapter. If all PC's but the
moved one work, the moved one has need of TCP/IP
re-install. The procedure was detailed a couple of days
ago in the Windrivers column on MS info.

While 700 feet is probably way too long, it may actually work. You mention that file and print sharing still work. Have you tested network throughput over that cable? SiSoft Sandra will test network performance. Windows also has tools for monitoring it. If your network performance is reasonably good (say 50 mbps or better over a 100 mbps connection) you can probably rule out the cabling. Your sister may just be poorly estimating cable length, or you may be running Cat5e, Cat6, or Cat7. I dont know what the maximum lengths are on these types of cables. Maybe you're using STP instead of UTP, and are using grounded plugs that make the shielding work. Who knows. If you have good throughput over the wire, it's probably good.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any protocols other that TCP/IP installed?

Altough that cable is way out of specs, that doenst seem to be the problem since the other comp. worked fine.

Are the Ip adresses dynamic or static? is the default gateway correct? and how about dns? if all else fail reinstall tcp/ip!

Well there are a few things you can try.


Now i'm going to assume that the wire is good, even though it's an absured length for a cat run.

Firstly, start with basic connectivity over TCP/IP.

Do you get an IP address from the router?. If no, then your wire may be bad, your TCP/IP stack may be corrupt, your Drivers may need reinstalling, your Wire may be the cause of the issue.

You get an IP? well, can you ping the router? If not, then again, look at your TCP/IP, look to your drivers, and look for packetl loss (run a ping with the -t switch to make it continuous)

can ping the router and have no packet loss?

Well, try pinging a public ip. (resolve www.yahoo.com) and ping the IP.. No response? well you have an issue with your router or some external networking component.

Can ping IP? try pinging a FQDN.. just ping www.yahoo.com. Get unknown host? well, you can't resolve DNS, Winsock and DNS servers may be an issue, also your NAT on the router may not be giving proper information.

You can ping the FQDN, then your have an issue with your IE software. check your proxies, check your temp internet files, check your security settings. Run the Internet Connection wizard.

The fact that you can browse other computers tells me that the netbios section of your network functions, you need to sort out the TCP/IP side of it. Hope it helps.

Thanks for the replies everyone. The issue is resolved. She ended up having her husband reload Windows which corrected the issue.

Thanks again.