Running Cable Question

[rnelson0]

If you are a hardcore gamer, my suggestion would be to run cat6 instead of cat5e. There is not much of a price difference plus you have the potential get more if you need to go that route in the future.

What gain is that? Cat5e can do GigabitEthernet and possibly 10gigE as well. Cat6 can definitely do 10gigE and the cable is the same price, but termination is outrageously expensive. It's very sensitive to bend radius, crimping, etc., whereas cat5e has room to "spare" in the specs such that a sloppy run with 90 degree bends and bad crimps will still do gigE without a problem.

The difference in cat5e and cat6 is only what your vendor is trying to upsell you. To get good 10gigE speeds, you're not going to be using UTP cable anyway. The best way to future-proof a home is by running conduit so that you can yank the UTP and put fiber in without having to open up the walls again. Cat6 won't provide you that kind of protection.

I don't personally put much stock in a man's resume alone, but I have worked in telecom for 10 years and you can find much the same cat5e vs cat6 arguments at ArsTechnica.com's forums. Educated telecom vets agree that buying cat6 is just a way to be fleeced by your supplier.

[Greg.B]

Well just to report in, the job is done. As I asumed and someone else confirmed, there are 3 screws in the rim of the recessed lighting, then the can pops out. I was able to easily run the cable from point A to point B.

I went with regular R6 cable for 2 reasons, 1)sheilded, as I'm running it past electric lines, etc. 2)The area could be moved around and a TV could go in the spot. And the cost is much less than Cat5. The wire alone for Cat5 was $30. I got everything I needed including wall plate, connectors, box an wire for $25.

I'm sorry to say but for hardcore first person shooter games, only hard wired is the way to go. Again not to sound like a nerd, but I'm talking about competitive league play. Yes you can do it wireless, but if there is ever a lag it could cost you the game. I'm talking about fast paced 100fps games. Out of the 100 or so guys that I play with, no one runs wireless. The guys that did often complained, and ended up running wire to keep up with the jones.

[Crash2510]

glad to hear you were able to get it done after you figure out the first can light its easy from there.

[Greg.B]

Yeah that was the easy part..the part that literally killed me was cuting a small hole in the ceiling. I cut it so that the piece was actually never cut away, but was held on by one side, kinda like a door if you will. Then I flapped the piece back down into the hole. I'm thinking about gluing the piece in place and then compound over it. Not sure what glue to use, but I need to do something to keep the piece from pushing back up into the hole.

[Sam Conder]

Well just to report in, the job is done. As I asumed and someone else confirmed, there are 3 screws in the rim of the recessed lighting, then the can pops out. I was able to easily run the cable from point A to point B.

I went with regular R6 cable for 2 reasons, 1)sheilded, as I'm running it past electric lines, etc. 2)The area could be moved around and a TV could go in the spot. And the cost is much less than Cat5. The wire alone for Cat5 was $30. I got everything I needed including wall plate, connectors, box an wire for $25.

I'm sorry to say but for hardcore first person shooter games, only hard wired is the way to go. Again not to sound like a nerd, but I'm talking about competitive league play. Yes you can do it wireless, but if there is ever a lag it could cost you the game. I'm talking about fast paced 100fps games. Out of the 100 or so guys that I play with, no one runs wireless. The guys that did often complained, and ended up running wire to keep up with the jones.

Playing COD4? If so, what clan/team? What servers?

[Greg.B]

Playing COD4? If so, what clan/team? What servers?

I only play CounterStrike Source. Clan is www.nycff.net (New York City Fraggin Fiber).

Although COD4 is a very good game, nothing in my opinion is more realistic then Counter Strike. I've been addicted to it for a few years now. I'm sure if your asking that question you understand the need for hardwire.

[Sam Conder]

I'm sure if your asking that question you understand the need for hardwire.

Yes, I understand. No wireless network and ABSOLUTELY no wireless keyboard or mouse! I am currently playing on a Ideazon Fang Gamepad and have a Logitech G9 mouse. I also have one of the original Logitech G15 keyboards, but use it for monitoring and controlling TeamSpeak with the LCD panel.

I just got hooked on FPS and the team I play with is only playing COD4 at the moment. They apparently played a lot of BF2 and Ravenshield in the past.

[Greg.B]

Very cool. I actually play with a wireless keyboard, I don't find it to have that much of an effect, but I could be wrong. I use a MX518 Mouse, I like the ability to have 8 buttons and the wheel for all functions.

You should try CounterStrike, I would bet you would be instantly hooked. Its selling for only a few bucks $10 ?. I believe if you goto valve.com, or steampowered.com.

[nadz]

Counter-Strike rocks!

i like DoD too...

-a

[DaveS]

I wish I had come upon this topic sooner...

You could have used a set of Motorola NIM100 MoCa modems - used for ethernet over coax (i.e. your cable tv lines).

I use a set for connecting various places in my house.

The lag is only slightly worse than wired, and way better than wireless. Also, I get about 80Mb/s sustained.

You can even use them across passive splitters - but they don't like any active components in between the nodes.

You can get them on Ebay for about $50-$75 each.

Mostly people are using them to network their Tivos.

Cool product, I wonder why they never marketed them to the public.

[iceman61]

Glad to see you got it completed & it was cost effective. That's the name of the game.

BTW I found the "gun" I was refering to in my earlier post. Just happened to run across it today in HD. It wasn't price like I thought either. It was $45! Might have been because of the really nice fishing reel attached. lol

[LinuxRandal]

They do sell cat 5/5e/6 shielded cable, so that should be considered an option in the future.

Now, at my parents old house, there was an addition in the attic that the ONLY way to get network access up there (prewireless) was to run it through the furnace ducts. One option for anyone thinking in the future would be to do that and then run it either on top of the baseboards, or pull then and place it under them.

[Greg.B]

Just an update. So I had to patch the hole I put in the ceiling where I had to run it down the wall. When I cut the drywall out, I made it so that it was like a door and would swing back into the hole. Well last night I used some elmers glue to glue it along the seem. Once it setup I used some compound on it, and then mesh tape. So far so good. The only bad thing about using joint compound in the winter is that it takes a while to dry when its cold. Tonight I will put on another thin coat to cover the mesh and should be done. Hopefully the LOML will not notice where it was, she is a drywall critic...lol...

[Carlos]

but when playing online video games, you need to be hardwired so there is no lag in game play.

Radio signals travel FASTER than electricity in a conductor! (Radio signals travel at nearly the speed of light while electrical signals travel at 2/3 of the speed of light.) In practice, there is no discernible difference between radio or wired electrical speed since the range is so tiny (divide 186,000 miles per second by the distance from your computer to your router). The only potential lag point is the encryption/decryption process, but most routers manage to accomplish that in far less than 1 millisecond, rendering the difference moot. To remove even that delay you can remove encryption and use other security measures, but that's really not going to make any difference.

I engineer wireless networks from the residential range to long-distance microwave (23/24GHz) for large-scale communications. I have plenty of experience and testing to show the speed differences. In long range communications we actually get better performance on a well-engineered radio link than wired (fiber is a different story).

[LinuxRandal]

Radio signals travel FASTER than electricity in a conductor! (Radio signals travel at nearly the speed of light while electrical signals travel at 2/3 of the speed of light.) In practice, there is no discernible difference between radio or wired electrical speed since the range is so tiny (divide 186,000 miles per second by the distance from your computer to your router). The only potential lag point is the encryption/decryption process, but most routers manage to accomplish that in far less than 1 millisecond, rendering the difference moot. To remove even that delay you can remove encryption and use other security measures, but that's really not going to make any difference.

I engineer wireless networks from the residential range to long-distance microwave (23/24GHz) for large-scale communications. I have plenty of experience and testing to show the speed differences. In long range communications we actually get better performance on a well-engineered radio link than wired (fiber is a different story).

FCC regulations cover how strong some devices can emit a signal. That, along with the fact their are light bulbs that are known to emit signals in the same frequency as wireless HOME communications (2.4), phones, etc.. that do create interference and crossover. There is a lot that gets into trying to set up a fixed, wireless network, that competes with the lack of problems, given by wired networks in the same small area.
By the standards you deal with, wireless would not be a well engineered standard.