this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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I spent ~$35 on new cables and my LAN speed increased 6x (self.selfhosted)
submitted 3 months ago by anonymouse2 to c/[email protected]
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After seeing that my wireless speeds were much faster than the speeds I was getting over Ethernet, I decided to invest in some new cables. I didn't know it before, but I saw while I was changing them out that my current cables were Cat 5e. While putting my network together, I had just been grabbing whatever cables I could find in my scrap drawers. Now I have Cat 8 cables and my speeds jumped from 7MB/s to an average of over 40MB/s. It's a much bigger improvement than I expected, especially for such a small investment.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Also learned this the hard way, when i was starting my "homelab" , I bought a box of (not knowingly that its bad) cheap CCA(copper clad alum) cat6 cables and im wondering why are my access points not negotiating to gigabit, turns out cca are trash and shouldn't be used on POE or even on high speed trunks, learned my lesson now and swapped my cables to pure copper, they are more expensive like 100$ more expensive but at least they do the job.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

CCA wasn't probably your issue there, CCA is actually becoming the standard everywhere because copper is way too expensive and to be fair not needed with modern hardware.

You most likely issue with that CCA is the AWG size you picked, cheap cable is usually 24, 26 or even 28 AWG and those will be bad.

If you want PoE or anything gigabit or above you need to pick 23 AWG. This is considerably cheaper than full copper and it will work fine for the max. rated 100m. Either way, cheap 26 AWG should be able to deliver gigabit and PoE at short distances like 20 meters or so.

Another important thing is to make sure your terminations are properly done and the plugs are good. Meaning, no Cat5e connectors should be used, always use staggered ones:

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, I think I got 24awg cca before I swapped them to pure copper, and now I also think, I wanna re crimp all of my connectors using staggered ones lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I've done my fair share of long runs of Cat6e 23 AWG with PoE and they all work fine and gigabit on distances like 100 meters or close. Sometimes even slightly above that.

Staggered will reduce the failure rate by a lot, specially if you're into gigabit speeds or anything above it. Although I know from experience that you can get gigabit on non-staggered connectors it won't always happen on the first try. On long distances the noise caused by having the wires side by side may also cause problems.

Btw, if you've small patch cables don't use solid core for those, those should be stranded cables and they'll be more flexible, less likely to break when bent and less prone to bad contacts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

CCA shouldn't be used anywhere ever. It's garbage cable for garbage people who will pinch a penny and end up spending ten times that in dealing with the issues and the eventual replacement.