Hi everyone!
I just bought Cat5e UTP Solid Core cable from Ebay.
Surprisingly, the individual wires are not twisted.
There should be 4 pairs of twisted wire, isn't it?
And I made 13m long straight through cable out of that
which didn't work. I can't ping my router using that wire.
Later I used another wire which was little shorter but it
was Cat5e UTP Stranded, that works.
The first one didn't work, is it because the wire is not
twisted and prone to interference.
Shouldn't Cat5e UTP be twisted inside? or some comes untwisted?
Please help me out coz' if that is case then I am gonna have to
return it for refund.
cheer.
biksuni

AFAIK, there should be 4 pairs of twisted wires, with several twists per inch.

It could be that the first cable you made was wired incorrectly, or it could be a result of the interference because the wires are not twisted.

--Ian

<<AFAIK, there should be 4 pairs of twisted wires, with several twists per inch.

<<It could be that the first cable you made was wired incorrectly, or it could be a result of the interference because <<the wires are not twisted.

Thats what I thought. UTP should have 4 pairs of twisted wires.
Actually my cable came in a 305m box. Whole cable is like that.
Are you positive that the cable is faulty?
I am gonna ring that ebayer.

No, my cable is ok when I tested with cable tester.
My primary guess is; because the wire is not twisted.

Thanks anyway.

How can the whole box is faulty?

cheers

Typically solid core cable is used for internal building wiring i.e the box and not patch cables. You need to use a RJ45 connector designed for solid core too. However both cables should still be twisted.

does it actually say cat52 on it? i'd assume it's actually cat3, which is [ often / usually / sometimes ] untwisted.

[COLOR="Blue"]<<does it actually say cat52 on it? i'd assume it's actually cat3, which is [ often / usually / sometimes ] <<untwisted.[/COLOR]

Thanks Acid_kewpie,
Ok, I will write what the cable says ok.

"Netconnect category 5e cable E138034 1300 24AWG CM/MP (UL)c(UL) CMG/MPG (UL) Verified to Category 5 108226FT 0232"

I don't know what to do with this cable? Should I ask for refund or is there any use of it?

Cheers

First of all the clue is in the name. "UTP" stands for "Unshielded Twisted Pair", with the emphasis here being on the "Twisted". The details printed on your cable don't actually say "UTP" anywhere.

It could be that it's supposed to be UTP, but it's faulty.

This can come about during manufacture when a machine malfunctions and simply doesn't twist the pairs. Usually, this is picked up by the quality control and the effected box is rejected as "seconds" quality. Maybe that's why it's turned up on eBay, the seller may have bought a batch of "seconds" from a manufacturer, but is selling them as "best" quality when clearly they are not.

Having said all that, it's unlikely that a cable run of 13 mtrs would result in no signal at all. Cat 5 has a maximum recommended segment length of 185 mtrs in a single run, so even with massive interference, 13 mtrs is nothing in comparrison and the worst you should get is a few dropped packets of information. The complete lack of connection is more likely to be due to the point mentioned earlier that solid core cable requires different connectors to the multistrand cable which is designed for patch cables.

You could take issue with the eBay trader in that the cable supplied is not what it claims to be if they listed it as UTP, but if you're only using it for very short runs of less than about 30 mtrs, then it should still work OK providing you use the propper connectors on it.

Hope that helps,

Richard.