Short-run (~1ft) Cat5e should be able to handle 2Gbps, yah? Or do I need to suck it up and go buy a Cat6? - ThreadSky

gregdoucette.bsky.social • 16 days ago

Short-run (~1ft) Cat5e should be able to handle 2Gbps, yah?

Or do I need to suck it up and go buy a Cat6?

Comments

mithras.bsky.social•16 days ago

Yeah, you're fine there.

kebe.com•16 days ago

2.5 and 5 were, IIRC, designed to match GigE for 5e deployments, because of how much 5e was rolled out there.

kebe.com•16 days ago

But if you're getting NEW cables, get 6 or higher so you can do up to 10GBaseT.

moink.org•16 days ago

It might work! All depends on the cable quality and its surroundings.

riglow.com•16 days ago

if its newer than 2016, otherwise safer bet to buy a cat6 or a new cat5e of the right spec

biohazardous.bsky.social•16 days ago

Yes, just fine for a 1ft run. For short runs of a couple feet I can get 10Gbps out of cat 5e.

wm.hdly.io•16 days ago

5e maxes out at 1 Gbps, so you’ll need 6 for up to 10 Gbps.

peter-donnelly.bsky.social•16 days ago

It's distance dependent though

lemurofti.me•16 days ago

This. The 5e SPEC maxes out. What you can actually get it to do isn't the same.

peter-donnelly.bsky.social•16 days ago

The spec is usually for 100M

But I'm a bit out of touch

deathbymeteor.bsky.social•16 days ago

You'll be fine at that short a distance.

holir.bsky.social•16 days ago

in a pinch, maybe. worth the $5 to get a cat 6 for long term an/or if you are already placing an order.

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

Also learning my lesson for cheaping out on the mesh upgrade 2 years ago b/c I figured it would be years before fiber was available here 🤦‍♂️

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

(My question re the cabling is whether any of the ungodly litany of Ethernet cables I already have in the Perpetual Box O' Cables™ will suffice, or if I need to go get new ones. If I get new, I'll get the later standard for future-proofing)

biohazardous.bsky.social•16 days ago

Probably just fine so long as the runs aren't too terribly long. I run a mostly 10gb LAN and my patch closet switch connects up to my server room switch at 10gb over the cat 5e the previous homeowner installed. It's probably a 25ft run.

runningoutwest.bsky.social•16 days ago

You'll be good.

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

Also I genuinely have no clue how the fuck I amassed this many Ethernet cables over the years

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

✅ Swapped out cables
✅ Rebooted various things
✅ Tinkered with settings
✅ Confirmed everything works...

❌ ...except forgot the TV is so old it only has a 10/100 NIC 🤦‍♂️

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

On the bright side, everything *except* the TV is appreciably faster!

ewigeliberal.bsky.social•16 days ago

https://www.xumo.com/products/xumo-stream-box#

📺

Smart TV or not, obviously you have a TV with an ETH port)). Get a Xumo Box.

Xumo ETH port is 1 Gbps. Connect Xumo box via ETH to home net. Connect HDMI -out to TV. Perform setup.

Voila, no more bottleneck, apps quotient (~minimum) on XUMO is impressive.

shalrath42.bsky.social•16 days ago

It could be worse...

realchuckbass.bsky.social•16 days ago

Have you tried putting the router above the TV? (so the data runs downhill)

flukeman.bsky.social•16 days ago

Pretty sure some tvs (Sony Android TVs, IIRC) can actually use a USB NIC to get gigabit hardwired.

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

🤔🤔🤔

Hadn't considered this, appreciate the tip!

kenburnside.bsky.social•16 days ago

Fission. They mitose, slowly, in the dark.

duncanwatson.bsky.social•16 days ago

And curl around each other in a tangled mess

ncweaver.skerry-tech.com•16 days ago

Looking at Wikipedia at least it should.

theandrew13.bsky.social•16 days ago

If you went with Frontier they give you an Eero, you can make your house mesh easily just by buying another Eero and adding it to the network. They offer that, but it was a expensive upgrade. Further ahead just getting the extra router yourself. Been loving my fiber so far

pzpoy.bsky.social•16 days ago

I think this answers the question fr

glennf.com•16 days ago

Yes. 6 and 5E are barely indistinguishable over very short lengths. Even over long lengths the advantage is avoiding future problems with, say, 2.5G Ethernet.

cpm5280.bsky.social•16 days ago

I've even seen 10Gbe work on short runs of 5e. Still cat 6 is cheap these days so I just buy cat 6 by default. The 5e still laying around should be fine for a long while for most speeds.

nf1nk.bsky.social•16 days ago

I’d try it and see if it works for you and then if it doesn’t go get a new cable.

It may not totally handle full speed but it might be good enough.

rayn3.cloud•16 days ago

You could buy a crimper, some terminators, and however loose cat5/6 cable is necessary and terminate your desires length! I think that alleviates the poor decision making of our past selves

parserexception.bsky.social•16 days ago

Imo male termination of cat 5/6 is almost never worth it. Splurge on the female connectors and get a handful of pre terminated cables for the last bit. I had so many headaches troubleshooting male terminations when I ran cable, and that was after my boss gave me a fluke tester worth more than my car

mobiusrtc.bsky.social•16 days ago

Would get the Cat6. Believe Cat5 generally goes up to 1gps

peter-donnelly.bsky.social•16 days ago

I'd guess yes

doail.bsky.social•16 days ago

IIRC Cat5e maxes out at 1Gbps

buffandtuff.com•16 days ago

if it's a newer one, maybe. cat 6 is a definitely.

eljefe.social•16 days ago

need at LEAST 2 ft coz you need at least 1 ft/gb.

also, it will be very...hot.

albert.aribaud.net•16 days ago

Maybe 1ft between two active Ethernet equipments will work, maybe it won't; spec says minimum 1m I believe. But then, I'm not a network specialist.

flounderish.bsky.social•16 days ago

cat5e should have you covered, yeah: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/5gbps-ethernet-standard-details-8023bz/

darrinveit.bsky.social•16 days ago

Handy chart from Netgear shows the speeds that different cable types can support. In short, yes: Cat5e will support up to 5Gbps up to the 100m max length that Ethernet supports. https://www.netgear.com/business/wired/switches/multi-gig/?utm_source=pepperjam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=159404&clickId=5114839037&utm_content=8-12647

cassie-darkborn.bsky.social•16 days ago

I ran 10 gig on cat 5

crimsonruari.bsky.social•16 days ago

Yes. It can probably do 10 gig if the run is short and the cable is decent. It’ll just depend on signal quality.

thekvetch.bsky.social•16 days ago

Sir, you don't need that kind of bandwidth to get tdub on your screen.

mav.wtf•16 days ago

Oh yeah. Should be fine. For short runs like that, you can use damn near anything. At that distance you could probably run gigabit over speaker wire and paperclips as long as the conductors don't short. Ethernet is surprisingly forgiving.

mav.wtf•16 days ago

At minimum, it's always worth trying. If you try to copy something and it shits itself halfway through, you'll know it doesn't work 😜

mav.wtf•16 days ago

One time, while drunk, I crawled behind a dresser and spliced together a 25-ft run that ran between stories to make games work for a lan party. Taped the wires together with Scotch tape. Just wanted it to work for a weekend and found out like 2 yrs later they just kept using it and it kept working.

mav.wtf•16 days ago

This is also an important lesson about legacy systems.

orpach.bsky.social•16 days ago

Yes.
IIRC, the spec says cat5e is good for 10gb up to about ten feet if it's alone.

You'd want cat6a if you had to upgrade though.

carpinsandiego.com•16 days ago

If you call spending $3 having to suck it up. 😄

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

$3 + having to drive an hour round trip because I live in BFE 😉

gregdoucette.bsky.social•16 days ago

Could just order from Amazon but I'm allergic

tormutrose.bsky.social•16 days ago

https://Monoprice.com is generally my go to for cheap cables, though I haven't ordered anything from them in quite awhile.

isaac32767.picknit.com•16 days ago

Radio Shack?

carpinsandiego.com•16 days ago

Someone's bringing jokes. 😄

carpinsandiego.com•16 days ago

Newegg? Ebay?

glen-apatrida.bsky.social•16 days ago

Radio shack is 2 blocks from me. Very expensive and crappy crap. Plus I keep 100 meters of cat 6 and 100+ connectors on and an an assistant to make the cables as I hate doing that.

wmjones.bsky.social•16 days ago

Short answer: It’s not designed to do that and was never tested to that standard.
However, it might work. If it’s not critical infrastructure you could try it.

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