How far away?

M

Myke

Registered
Hi,

I am a networking newbie and so far it is doing my head in! I have had endless trouble trying to connect a wireless ethernet bridge to my iMac but it has been so traumatic I'm not even going to go there. Really, you don't want to know! :(

Instead I intend to run a cable from the iMac to my router. Can anyone tell me what the maxium practical length for a cat5 cable is? The distance is about 6 metres.

Thanks.
 
You can buy cables many times that length and they will work fine.

I use a wireless-to-ethernet bridge to my old iMac and it works fine. Maybe I or somebody else here with the same model as yours could help you get your bridge up and running.
 
Ethernet cable length - 100 meters, (328 ft., 109 yds., or about the length of a football field).
 
Thanks for your help, much appreciated. The wired connection will suit me fine just now. Unless the problems are to do with the iMac's Ethernet port, in which case at least I will have discovered the fault!

The issue by the way involved a dodgy connection which sometimes worked, sometimes not, over a distance of no more than 6 metres. 3 different Enet bridges showed the same symptoms. You can imagine how long it took me to fail to sort this out.... !
 
As bobw said, twisted-pair ethernet has a limit of 100 meters, or about 330 feet. However, it can be extended with the use of a hub or switch (active, of course). But as far as cable length is concerned without the use of such devices, it's basically that. Sure you can extend it farther, but then you start to encounter missed packets and corrupted data due to interference and degredation of signal.
 
I'd just point out that the 100metres distance is without signal amplification, or repeaters, it is possible to get runs of >100metres. However, this has no significance to the original question :)

Is the distance of 6metres in the same room, or is it through a wall or something? I've not heard of quite that poor performance in terms of wireless.

Rob
 
Interference from other networks can disrupt one's own connection. Shielding your router and bridge from the direction of outside interference can help, as well as turning on encryption and changing channels. (When I had my own D-Link DWL 810+ too close to the window it would bring down our entire network!)
 
You might also want to make sure that the cabling is done properly, and that quality twisted-pair cable was used. I've seen some really shoddy cabling and cables that have caused problems with the propagation of data.
 
Hi,

I thought I had understood but now I'm a little confused again. Folk are talking about a twisted pair - but I thought that was used for connecting Macs directly, port to port? Surely a standard Ethernet cable Cat 5 is all you need to connect to a router? Or are they perhaps the same thing?

How deep is my ignorance!!!
 
twisted pair is referring to the cables inside a cat5 ethernet cable, they are arranged in pairs that are twisted. Its just a nickname for cat5 cable.
 
Thanks Bleem2k, now I understand. Still some way to go before I get to be a Jedi knight though....
 
The direct PC to PC cable would be named a "crossover" cable. Macs actually don't need that: the ethernet ports are self-configuring. Whatever cable you plug in will work in each case AFAIK.
 
Myke said:
Hi,

I thought I had understood but now I'm a little confused again. Folk are talking about a twisted pair - but I thought that was used for connecting Macs directly, port to port? Surely a standard Ethernet cable Cat 5 is all you need to connect to a router? Or are they perhaps the same thing?

How deep is my ignorance!!!
Click to expand...

Sorry about that. Thankfully, bleem2k seems to have explained it quite well. :)
 
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