Our New House is Cat5 Wired...?

[NickC19]

So we're moving into a new house this week and its already hardwired with Cat5. What I'm wondering is what exactly does this mean for us and whats it enable us to do? There's only going to be 2 rooms in the house which we'll use internet access (my room and the office), and obviously both have a Cat5 jack in them already, so what exactly do we do/need to get it probably set up. Please be as specific as possible, thanks.

-Nick-

[Urbanfox]

r u sure its networkedand not internet ready? in fullerton in so cal all new houses r wired for cat 5 and have ports in all rooms...only thing is it is only used for fibre to the home internet accesss. in a closet somewhere there might be a little box on the wall where the cable comes to a junction if not.

[NickC19]

Originally Posted by Urbanfox

r u sure its networkedand not internet ready? in fullerton in so cal all new houses r wired for cat 5 and have ports in all rooms...only thing is it is only used for fibre to the home internet accesss. in a closet somewhere there might be a little box on the wall where the cable comes to a junction if not.

Not sure I follow what you're saying...I'm guessing its just the 'internet ready' option though. I know in the garage there is a panel on the wall that has something to do with the wiring, which might be the box you were referring to. The panel is screwed onto the wall though so I cant see whats going on behind it.

-Nick-

[Urbanfox]

ok its either 1 of two things

1)it is cat 5 cable leading to some junction somewere where can network ur house with ease.

or

2)the line is only there for use if u pay for internet, think of plugging into a router in the wall.

[kwiksilver]

you can use it for multiple phone lines as well...

[rockdude14]

my guess is all the wires go somwhere

you need to find it

my guess is your going to have a lot of wires there
buy a switch with enough to plug them all in and than plug that to the router and router to your cabel/dsl modem

this way they are all plugged in and you dont have to **** with finding which wire is whcih

[NoAffinity]

It sounds like the thing in the garage is a router. The question is, does it serve as a cable modem as well? If so, then you probably just have to activate service with your ISP, then plug comps straight into the wall outlets. If not (and this would make no sense at all), then you will have to get a cable splitter (with the step-down for internet signal transmission), run a catv line to the modem, then run cat5 to the box in the garage.

[Dantte]

Well, ya'all lucked out with your house already being prewired.

Anyways, here what to do, and I'm about 95% sure this is the situation in your hourse since I use to pre-wire houses at my last job.

All those jacks lead back to a central point, mostly likely a patch panel and that panel is going to be in the same room as where your phone lines/cable and generally power comes into the house.

There may or maynot be a (router, cable modem, ect...) at that location. In my experience, there is not going to be one there.

To determain which cable goes to which room (should be labled, if not, you had lazy people built your house,) but if not, you can get a tool called a "Tone Generator" and a "Tone Pickup" will help you find all your cables in under 5 mins (Fluke is one company that makes this tool.)

One you find which jack goes where, get a hub and put it at the patch paneland plug everything in (doesnt matter if there are no computers connected at the other end, it wont hurt it), plug in all your computers in their rooms. CONGRATES you just networked your house (other then the configuration, but like the guys that didnt lable, I'm feeling lazy right now too and dont want to explain). Now all you need is internet access and connect it to the hub via a router or second connection on one of the computers (internet sharing) and all your computers have internet access.

Hope this helps