Corrupted Cat "7" Cable Attempted Fix

[dunderdo]

Hi,

 

I have run up against an odd issue which I would very much appreciate some help with.

 

Background: I had shielded cat 7 cables installed throughout apartment under floors (which I was assured were tested) before fitting wooden floors etc. All cables are fine except the (most important) one running from the router in the kitchen to the main switch (switch 2) in the living room (the living room main switch goes on to provide Ethernet to the rest of the apartment). Final bit of background, the kitchen router is wired to a switch (switch 1) and used for Nest, Hue, etc.

 

So, the kitchen-living room cable is actually corrupted, upon continuity testing it was found that the orange cable creates a circuit with the shielding so must have been pierced. To get round this I swapped the orange pair with the brown pair at both ends (in the connectors) in the hope of achieving 100mbps. This worked but only under one set of circumstances as follows:

 

Router - switch 1 - PC

 

I was hoping for Router - any configuration including switch 2 but none provide internet: Router - PC nope, Router - switch 1 - switch 2 - PC nope, router - switch 2 - pc nope.

 

Any help with this would be much appreciated, I can't understand how it works in the original configuration listed but not in any others. 

 

Thanks in advance for any help and/or advice.

 

Cheers,

 

D

[sc302 Veteran]

replace the cable.  You have determined the cable is bad, you should discontinue use.

[TheReaperMan]

Replace the cable, best thing in the long run.

 

 

[dunderdo]

HI, if only as simple, the cable is under wooden floorboards which run from the front to the back of the apartment, a layer of plywood and the original wooden flooring as well as being routed up through 2 walls.

[sc302 Veteran]

Just now, dunderdo said:

HI, if only as simple, the cable is under a wooden floorboards which run from the front to the back of the apartment, a layer of plywood and the original wooden flooring as well as being routed up through 2 walls.

use the existing cable to pull new cable, tie the cable to the end and pull it through. 

[Hum]

Maybe the new cable could be tied to the old cable, and be pulled thru ....

[dunderdo]

5 minutes ago, sc302 said:

use the existing cable to pull new cable, tie the cable to the end and pull it through. 

This is Plan A, the renovators (who installed the cable) are visiting tomorrow and I am very much hoping this will be possible. I have a bad feeling they may have stapled the thing hence the piercing, if this is the case replacement would require ripping the whole floor up as well as tearing chunks out of my walls and probably uninstalling part of the kitchen (Plan D). 

This is why I had hoped to find a solution by negating the orange pair even though it cost me Gbps connection as a plan B.

Plan C would be to install a wireless access point into switch 2.

 

[TheReaperMan]

if they installed the cable, They are responsible for making it work correctly in the first place, they should have tested before floorboards or other fitting had been done to ensure this would not happen.

 

if you have not yet decorated, could you not just pull off the skirting board / baseboard and run a new cable behind?

 

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

You can remove any connectors to the cable and test each pair with an Ohm meter if they are no shorted you should see no resistance or very little depending upon how long the run is. Then short each pair at one end -blue orange green brown and then test again with an Ohm meter if any pair is open it will be bad. But if at all possible use it as a pull string..

[+BudMan MVC]

If somehow a staple went through the cable - then you might have a hard time using it to pull a new cable through.  But yeah best course of action is replace the cable.

 

I would think if you paid a company to run the cable they should of tested and validated it was good.  But if your saying that they ran it, and then there was more construction - and this is when the cable got damaged.. That would not be fault of the company that laid the cable, but you could prob hold the company that did the added construction to pay for the repair.  If you had warned them that there were cables?  Or the cables were visible when they were doing the new construction of the floors?

 

Bit unclear of the order of events.. But seems you had cable run before the floors were put in?  Did you actually validate the cable worked before the floor construction?

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

2 hours ago, BudMan said:

If somehow a staple went through the cable - then you might have a hard time using it to pull a new cable through.  But yeah best course of action is replace the cable.

 

I would think if you paid a company to run the cable they should of tested and validated it was good.  But if your saying that they ran it, and then there was more construction - and this is when the cable got damaged.. That would not be fault of the company that laid the cable, but you could prob hold the company that did the added construction to pay for the repair.  If you had warned them that there were cables?  Or the cables were visible when they were doing the new construction of the floors?

 

Bit unclear of the order of events.. But seems you had cable run before the floors were put in?  Did you actually validate the cable worked before the floor construction?

Most Profession Cable people certify a job when finished. Under normal situation, a cable will not go bad. A good place to look is the last place or area any construction or work was done. I was at a site where all the cables were in a conduit. Running that conduit must have not been easy in a 3 story building..