Question About Network Cables

[Abe Froeman]

This is most likely a stupid question so I apologize in advance.

I recently moved my desktop PC into my basement. It's prior location made it impossible for me to hook up my 360 and PS3 directly into the router I use. Now that it's in my finished basement, I can get away with running ethernet cables up the corner of a wall and across a drop ceiling and then snaking them up a wall so that I can have a wired connection on the consoles.

I'm assuming it won't, but would 50' of cable lose signal strenth at all? Also, does quality of cable mean anything? I know with HDMI it doesn't matter, but does it matter with ethernet?

 

[FrozenIpaq]

You shouldn't notice any degradation of the signal or speed at 50 feet (I personally have used 50' cables in the past with no noticeable adverse side effects). As far as quality of the cable: nope, doesn't matter. The good thing is, there aren't many "premium" cables out there for network so you'd be hard pressed to find any anyways. Be sure to check out monoprice if you're going to order the cable online (a whole lot cheaper than retail stores)

 

[Abe Froeman]

I was planning in getting them at a Best Buy because I also wanted to get some cable hiders for the run up the wall, but 50' cables there are like $40 and they are only like $10 at newegg. (Didn't check tour site yet.). Fuck Best Buy.

 

[Bran]

If there are a lot of other cables in the ceiling I'd go with cat6 just to be safe. Otherwise your standard cat5e will be fine and dandy.

 

[Hardrive]

If there are a lot of other cables in the ceiling I'd go with cat6 just to be safe. Otherwise your standard cat5e will be fine and dandy.

On Monoprice, cat 6 is only marginally more expensive, so I would recommend this. Especially if you plan on running gigabit.

We have several gigabit cat 6 100 ft runs in the suite in our dorm and we haven't experienced any problems, so you should be fine.

What I might recommend doing instead of doing several 50 ft runs is to do one 50 ft run to your entertainment system and then putting a switch there. You don't know what else may need ethernet down the road (HTPC, future game consoles, etc.).

 

[Sousanator]

I install cat5e network cable around 200ft in buildings on a regular basis, so 50ft is nothing (especially since I'm told we can run it about 500ft before any repeaters).

What I might recommend doing instead of doing several 50 ft runs is to do one 50 ft run to your entertainment system and then putting a switch there. You don't know what else may need ethernet down the road (HTPC, future game consoles, etc.).

This is what I did at my old place, and it worked beautifully. You only saw one cable from upstairs going into a router (which was also a wi-fi repeater) and 4 hidden wires going to my PC/games consoles. Ping/signal was unaffected, and that was also with a 50ft cable.

 

[Abe Froeman]

That's a perfect idea with the switch HD, thanks. It makes more sense to do that because I'm sure the next TV I get will have a network connection option.