Using a PC to test cat 5 cables
 

We have:
1. A spare old Pentium PC with a network card.
2. A few dozen used cat 5 network cables.


We need to test and reuse these cat 5 cables.

We would like to use the PC to test these cat 5 cables.

Are there any network testing scripts (like a on a Live CD) that can be used to do this?

Do you want a simple confidence test or a performance test to determine the bandwitdh i.e. how fast you can transmit data?

A simple confidence test would be to use an Ohm meter to check for continuity on the proper pins.

A quick cable test would be to connect this PC to your network. If the LED illuminates for the correct speed and you can ping another computer successfully then it is probably good. A file transfer test would confirm the cable is working properly. In theory you could hook up a loopback plug to the end of the cable and check it using ping command etc. This may not work the newer ethernet adapters.

I am not aware of any particular software except the normal tools i.e ping mii-tool, ethtool etc. for checking cables. Any liveCD should have some if not all of them.

For bandwidth tests the best tool would be a handheld cable tester.

The PC is on an internal LAN.
Bandwidth is not an issue.
The network card works just fine.

I want to test a whole bunch of cat 5 cables.