Yesterday I had a need for a 40 foot ethernet cable. I needed to connect two switches in different rack-rows, and needed to follow the cable-trays. That's not a size we use, well, ever, so finding one took some doing. But find one I did, and I rejoiced. It even had "Cat 5" on the side of it, as well as a slightly disturbing "100Mb" marking which just shows how old this particular cable was.
I got it chased through the floors, run through both racks, and connected the switches. Nada. No blinkenlights. I connected to the console port on one switch to see if it was somehow old enough that it had to be told about a crossover cable, but no dice. Nothing, at all, in the port diagnostics either.
Head scratching I looked at the cable end. And found that this particular cable only had 2 pairs of wires connected to the plug. Not 4. 2.
*headdesk*
I don't know where this thing was used before, but that ain't Ethernet. Or at least one I can use.
And I still need a 40ft cable.
I got it chased through the floors, run through both racks, and connected the switches. Nada. No blinkenlights. I connected to the console port on one switch to see if it was somehow old enough that it had to be told about a crossover cable, but no dice. Nothing, at all, in the port diagnostics either.
Head scratching I looked at the cable end. And found that this particular cable only had 2 pairs of wires connected to the plug. Not 4. 2.
*headdesk*
I don't know where this thing was used before, but that ain't Ethernet. Or at least one I can use.
And I still need a 40ft cable.
Can you cut it down and crimp it correctly? If the cable is already there, might as well use it if you can.
If it only had 2 wires, it was probably being used as a phone line. :-/
That's cat 3 cable.
The label on the cable is a very misleading, "LAN-TEK TM HYPER GRADE ETL VERIFIED LVL 5 100MBS". Looking at the plug, the other 2 pair are hiding in there so I could re-crimp this cable and have it work. However, hunting up the crimper will take as much effort as hunting up another 40ft cable.
Hyper Grade!!! This was before Cat5e or Cat6 became common marketing lingo.
Well, at least you can use it as a pull-string when you do find a 40ft. cable!