Length of cable joy!

[justin_ept]

Hello there

just to say some things that may help some folks in the future:

I posted a short while ago about my WRT54gs linksys router. I could not get it to see my internet gateway after I connected it all up. Thanks for all the posts I got to help solve the problem although none of them hit the nail on the head, there was one that led the way...

As my pc is upstairs and my cable point downstairs, I had 8m of ethernet cable between my modem and router (the router being upstairs), but only 1m between my router and pc - the result? No internet.

By placing my 1m cable between my modem and router (the router being downstairs), then the 8m cable from my router to the pc (upstairs) was I able to establish a connection.

Thanks for the post that suggested I swap my cables. I didn't at first because I knew that they worked in isolation. It appears that the router does not like long cables for wan, but is happy for them as lan.

Anyway, just wooping with joy.

Krgds

Justin Terpolated

[TheNorm]

Thanks, Justin, that is useful advice.

[Rob]

Weird outcome. I can't see why cable length should make a difference. What I'd be more inclined to suspect is that the plugs wern't quite making proper contact in the socket of the router / modem.

Anyhow the important thing is it's working for you now

[rikur]

.... or was the longer cable actually a cross-over cable?

[justin_ept]

Hi there

Well, of course it may not have been the cable length...

...but that was the only explanation I could come up with, since both cables in my setup work fine. I do not believe it was a case of cable not seated correctly, I had chacked that....

Anyway, there you go... Just some thoughts for others who have scratched heads at why, why why...

Justin

[The Jackal]

Try *type* of cable instead ?

Is the cable cat5 ? cat5e ? or cat6 ?

I laid around 600m of cat5e in my house which is good enough for around 300mbs and I get wonderful pings between equipment pity I didnt lay cat6 silly me nevermind next house maybe...

with cat5e here are my pings :

pinging the cable modem
(bedroom 2 -> node 0 (10m) -> bedroom 1 (10m) -> router -> back to node 0 and the cablemodem (10m dowstairs) = around at least 30m of cable

root gw:~> ping 192.168.100.1
PING 192.168.100.1 (192.168.100.1) from 10.0.0.10 : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=63 time=2.782 msec
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=63 time=2.688 msec
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=63 time=2.688 msec
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=63 time=2.701 msec
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=63 time=2.611 msec
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=63 time=2.630 msec
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=63 time=2.616 msec
64 bytes from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=63 time=2.604 msec


Pinging the router
(bedroom 2 -> node 0 (10m) -> bedroom 1 (10m) -> router = around at least 20m of cable

sweet pings

root gw:~> ping 10.0.0.1
PING 10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1) from 10.0.0.10 : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=261 usec
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=199 usec
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=191 usec
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=200 usec

Pinging the cable modem directly from the router around 10m of cable

These pings look high but they have always been that way no matter what length of cable (cr8ppy cable modem me thinks)

root myhome:~> ping 192.168.100.1
PING 192.168.100.1 (192.168.100.1): 56 octets data
64 octets from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=2.8 ms
64 octets from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.6 ms
64 octets from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.6 ms
64 octets from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.6 ms
64 octets from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.6 ms
64 octets from 192.168.100.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=2.6 ms