Are there any utilities or simple tools or techniques to easily test a CAT5 cable, to see how well was it installed? Cat5 is often installed by amateurs, but has been installed and "working" for years. Proper cable testers and certifiers like a Fluke or LanTech often cost over USD$1000 and people who have them are few. Aren't there some sort of special network cards, or USB cat5-testing devices, one can plug into a computer and test the cat5 with software? Perhaps an Intel utility for their cards? ethernet cable stress-testing cat5 Buy a Fluke cable tester, they're what everyone else uses. If you are going to continually test cables afterwards buy a fluke you won't be disappointed. If this is a one time only call around locally to companies and IT shops see what they would charge you to come out and test your runs. You could also do some searches on Google to rent a fluke cable tester. I found a few companies that do it. Totusoft LAN Speed Test, when used with their LAN Test Server product, is a software way of testing throughput of cable runs.

Their products are free for basic features, and quite cheap (~$10) for registration to get the advanced features. (thanks to user135698 for the tip)Ck Moving Company I think the major problem you are facing is that to test the physical properties of cables you need low level hardware access for the software which a standard laptop or PC NIC won't give you.Vinyl Laminate On Stairs /) and I think you can use your own software if you're not happy with their completely adequate software, or buy one of the well know hardware testers like Fluke and EFXO.Best Laptop Brand Besides Apple /jwbensley/Etherate to make low level Ethernet software tests.Browse other questions tagged ethernet cable stress-testing cat5 or ask your own question.

During the years I've collected many ethernet cables. I'd like to know the speed of each one (10Mbit / 10BASE-T or 100Mbit / 100BASE-TX or 1000BASE-T). How could I find out the speed of each Ethernet cable? Most cables have codes written on it but I don't know how to figure out the speed from this codes! Cable 1: E244650 (UL) TYPE CM 24AWG/4PRS (Red Color) Cable 2: E189529 9V AWM 2835 24AWG 60°C VM-1 (Blue Color) Cable 3: ENHANCED 4P 26AWG 350MHZ E188630 ISO11801 EIA/TIA 568A EN50173 VERIFIED UTP CAT.5E (Black Color) networking speed ethernet cable gigabit-ethernet If the cable has 4 twisted pairs (Orange, Green, Blue, Brown) then it's capable of 1gbps link speeds, provided there's a gigabit adapter/switch at both ends. Cable 3 is a Cat5E, which is definitely capable of gigabit speeds. The other cables are, most likely, also Cat5 or Cat5E. Whether you get 100 mbit or 1000 mbit speeds is really dependent on the Ethernet adapter at each end. If you have a 100 mbps switch then you'll only get 100 mbps speeds even if the cable is Cat6.

As long as you have 4 twisted pairs you should be able to get gigabit speeds from gigabit adapters unless there's a physical problem with the cable. Google E244650 + cable, EN50173 + cable, and so on. If this is for home usage, I don't think it would matter anyway. If you're building a server farm, throw them all away and buy new ones. I would read up about the different categories of Ethernet cables. Wikipedia pages are very comprehensive in there coverage. The different CAT or categories are used to differentiate the use of the cable. It is about the quality of the cable and how well it will handle different type of interference. How well it is suited to the environment it will be used in. CAT 5 Older cable, and the most commonly used. used for 100mbit connections, It is capable of 1000mbit connection. CAT 6 better quality then CAT5, designed for 1000mbit, some specification of CAT6 are also used for 10gbit connections. Considering all the other Stuff printed on the cables.

The Wikipedia articles could probably help as well. It refers to the different standards organisations and there codes for referring to exactly the same thing. A category 5 or 6 cable. It also tells you what type of plastic insulation is used. How many twists are in the cable.Browse other questions tagged networking speed ethernet cable gigabit-ethernet . I finally took your advice and went completely wired on my home network using a bunch of Ethernet cables I had lying around. Some are Cat5, and others are Cat5e. Is there a difference? Is one faster than the other? What should I use? Congratulations on wiring up your home—it's not always an easy task, but it feels great once you finally do it (especially if you're using the network to stream video, play games, transfer data between computers, and so on).There is, in fact, a difference between all those network cables. They look very similar from the outside, and any of them will plug into an ethernet port, but they do have some differences on the inside.

If you aren't sure what type of cables you have, look at the text printed on the cable—usually it will tell you what type it is. The differences between each type of cable can get very complicated and have a lot to do with network standards, but we'll tell you just what you need to know: how they'll practically affect the speed of your home network. Category 5 cabling, also known as Cat5, is an older type of network cabling. Cat5 cables were made to support theoretical speeds of 10Mbps and 100Mbps. You may be able to get gigabit speeds on a Cat5 cable, particularly if the cable is shorter, but it isn't always guaranteed.Since Cat5 is an older type of cabling, you probably won't see them very much in the store, but you may have gotten some with an older router, switch, or other networking device.Category 5 enhanced cabling, also known as Cat5e, is an improvement on Cat5 cabling. It was made to support 1000 Mbps "gigabit" speeds, so in theory, it's faster than Cat5. It it also cuts down on crosstalk, the interference you can sometimes get between wires inside the cable.

Both of these improvements mean you're more likely to get fast, reliable speed out of Cat5e cabling compared to Cat5.Category 6 cabling is the next step up from Cat5e, and includes a few more improvements. It has even stricter specifications when it comes to interference, and in some cases is capable of 10-Gigabit speeds. You probably won't use these speeds in your home, and the extra interference improvements won't make a huge difference in regular ueage, so you don't exactly need to rush out and upgrade to Cat6. But, if you're buying a new cable, you might as well, since it is an improvement over its predecessor. It's important to note that your network speed is different than your internet speed. Chances are, upgrading your cables isn't going to make a difference in how fast you load Lifehacker or Facebook—your internet speeds are still much slower than speeds on your network. However, if you're transferring files between computers (say, if you're backing up to a NAS), using gigabit-compatible hardware can make things move along faster.

Remember, though, you'll need more than just cables—to get gigabit speeds, you'll also need a gigabit-compatible router and gigabit-capable network cards in your computers. Most modern routers and cards are already capable of these fast speeds, but if you have any older PCs or routers, they might not be. Google your hardware's model number to find out. Photo by Harsh Agrawal. If you're happy with the current speeds on your network, then there's no need to go through the trouble of upgrading everything. However, if you have gigabit-capable hardware already, then upgrading the cables is very cheap—seriously, you can get it for mere dollars on Monoprice (depending on the length). If you're looking to get the best possible speeds out of your network, upgrading the old Cat5 cables to Cat5e could help. Like we said, some Cat5 cables can reach gigabit speeds, but unless you want to run speed tests and find out—which sounds horribly tedious to me—you might as well just spend a few bucks and get all Cat5e or Cat6.