Recently upgraded my router and switch to Gb speed and cables but ran in to a possible gotcha mom...

[G+_Rud Dog]

Recently upgraded my router and switch to Gb speed and cables but ran in to a possible gotcha moment. While roughing it all in the cable from rooms to switch were Cat-6. Since I was linking my modem over to a router and from there another switch, to pick up the extra cables the 4 port router would not handle, I caught myself using a short cable for neatness between the switch and router. It was then that I thought what is the difference between Cat-6 and Cat-5 the latter my older setup. Are the cables physically wired differently? Will this short jump between my router and 8 port switch affect the Gb transfer rate. Summing up just what kind of affect does mixing Cat-6 and Cat-5 cables have on a upgraded Cat-6 environment?

[G+_Eddie Foy]

Wiring is basically the same - kinda. Gb uses more/all of the wires then 10/100 (why you can't do PoE on Gb, nor bundle voice and data)  The diff in Cat5 and 6 is going to be in the impedence, inductance of the cable.  The twisting scheduled of the pair may be different too, I haven't looked that far into it.

 try a 5e.

[G+_Akira Yamanita]

A short Cat 5 cable will probably work fine even at GB speed. Cat 5e will work at 1 Gb.

[G+_Joe Phelps]

Cat 5 can do gigabit just fine.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Both Cat-5e and Cat-6 use 4 twisted pairs of wire. The primary difference is that Cat-6 wire pairs have a tighter twist to them, though most Cat-6 cables also have a plastic divider in the middle of those 4 pairs.

 

Cat-6 cables is rated at 1000 Mbps speeds up to ~330 FT and Cat-5 is rated at 100 Mbps at the same distance. In testing, a Cat-5e certified cable can handle around 300 Mbps at 330 FT and 800 Mbps (effectively Gigabit) at 100 FT — if my memory serves me correctly.

 

That said, a short Cat-5e cable should have little to no problems with a 1000 Mbps load. If you're interested in switching those cables out though, Monoprice probably has short Cat-6+ pretty cheap.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Thanks everyone. Noted one comment that left me asking yet another question. Eddie Foy  you say in your response "why you can't do PoE on Gb" yet I thought I saw POE Gb switches on sale did I read the add wrong? Again thanks for the input.

[G+_Mat Murdock]

You can do POE on a GB connection just fine. I do it all the time.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Yeah, I believe no PoE with Gigabit is a common misconception based on the way PoE works with 100-TX and 10-TX. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but with twisted pair cable you traditionally had 10/100-T and 10/100-TX - the difference being that T uses all 4 pairs for transmission and TX only uses 2 pairs (most devices were 100-TX even if they just said 100-T). Since only 2 pairs were used, the other 2 pairs are used to carry power.

Now, I haven't looked into how PoE works with 1000 base-T since all 4 pairs are used, but I imagine it has something to do with the differential signalling used to actually transmit data. Even though BR/BR-W is carrying data, it only needs a slightly different voltage between those to actually transmit data and it doesn't matter if that's 0v and 5v or 12v and 17v. Again, that's a complete guess, but I think it's close to how it would work.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Plan on placing a Gb/POE switch in the garage from where I can run my cameras but want to make sure this is not an issue. Thanks to everyone for their input.