Learned Something Today

Learned to replace rj-45 cable plugs this morning. A week ago, we performed a diagnosis in our home network. Why doesn’t the cable work? Easy to find, right? Right?

Network hell ensued. All cables from the router unplugged at once without any sort of previous documentation - not my idea, I must stress this. Did I mention all these cables are at least 6m long and the same colour? Hour and a half to put it back together, conclusion was that the cable we tried to diagnose did not work. Let’s change the plugs next week. It could be the cable itself, I said.

Next week. Split the wiring, order them correctly, same order on both ends. No, that’s not the correct ordering, let’s compare with a working cable. Ok, this is it. Changed the head on one side: no result. But wait the colored wires didn’t fit all the way through. Cut again, fit the new plug. Nope. Let’s try the other end. Not working, the router LED does not blink. It still didn’t pierce the wire correctly. Again. Unsuccessful. Maybe it’s the wire, as I’ve mentioned. Ok, let’s chop the wire halfway. Plug. Test. Finally, a working cable…. that’s half as long as it should be, rendering it useless for the purpose intended.

Wi-fi it is.