Some questions about getting ultimate cable performance.

[josh2139]

I was wondering if the length of a coax/ cat5 cable affects its performance. Also does using a splitter on a cable line (making one cable lines 2) reduce the amount of bandwidth i will receive? I'm asking because i basically have four options. If you can think of another better one I'm all ears.
Here goes: 1) run a coax cable from a fairly long distance with the coax cable passing a splitter then coming and hooking up to a cable modem. then running a short cat 5 to a router and short cat 5's from a router to pc's . 2) i can run a coax cable from a pretty far distance hooking up to a cable modem. then running short cat5 cables to the router and short cat 5 cables to pc's. 3) run a short coax cable to a cable modem then run a short cat 5 cable to a router then run long cat 5 cables to pc's. 4) run a short coax cable to a cable modem run a long cat 5 cable to a router then run short cat5 cables to pc's.
Which way would be the best? Also if a cable company came and set it up what would they do. Would they run another cable from the mainbox solely to connect to the modem? If so woud this be better? If someone could help me out i would greatly appreciate it. TIA.

[Uncle Bob]

Welcome here, BTW.

I would try option #1 and if worried about signal loss, use RG 6U. You could probably get away just fine with RG 59U . Look here for a listing of all the specific coax cables available and their uses.

It really depends upon what you mean by "fairly long distance". The best solution would be to run the tv cable the greatest distance and keep the CAT cables shorter.I'm sure there are others who will be of help here also, hang on.

[Aedan]

Ethernet over Cat 5 can go 100metres (330feet) down a cable with no ill effects. No performance loss, no issues. That's the way Ethernet was designed. Don't worry about the ethernet side!

All splitters cause signal loss. If you've got a good cable signal, then it's unlikely there will be a problem. If you have a bad cable signal, then it won't help matters. The splitter issue is a bit of suck it and see.

AidanII

[SteveI]

My cablemodem went down over the weekend. While TS was no help, he mentioned a few things that could be useful to you. For the splitter, try to get one meant for cablemodems.. they exist and are a little better when it comes to signal loss. Some of the cheap stuff is supposed to be pretty bad. Unless you are talking great 100's of meters, don't worry about it. Set it up in the most convenient way so that the components to your network are easily accessible. I have everything within a foot of each other, router/switch, switch & cablemodem.. Makes it easier to troubleshoot. All the PCs are connected by varying lenghts of cat5, even the 100footer never has problems.

In other words, don't worry about signal loss. If it happens, most likely, it won't be you, it will be the cable company, anyway.

[josh2139]

Ok so the splitter would cause more problems then cable length. AidanII will coax cable perform like cat5 in the sense that under a 100m no signal loss. AidanII if all splitters cause loss then won't all cable jacks have loss since they are split from another cable that goes to the mainbox? Uncle bob by a fairly long distance I mean across my house. Uncle bob i had no clue their was that many different coax cable's that amazed me. SteveI if I split the coax cable then I'm gonna have to split it twice cause its already split now and if i get a cable modem i guess i would have to split it again. So would i need two of those cable modem splitters. Well now that i think about it I could split the cable with the modem splitter first. Run the one cable to my modem then split the other cable again. Would that help?

[SteveI]

The strength of the signals will dictate how many times you can split. The easiest thing to do... if possible, is to split the cable coming into your house so that 1 of the 2 go straight to the cablemodem, (using a quality splitter). This ensures you get the best possible signal where it counts the most. Then, for the TVs, you can split the other 1/2 as much as you need to. This is only a rule of thumb, but I've been told by a few different people, 1/8, or you can split up to 4 times. However, this is completely dependent on the quality of the signal coming into your house.

I took it 1 step further.. I have 1 line coming into my house, with a 4way splitter that breaks it down to 25% each... Each of these goes to a different room.. 1 cablemodem and 3 TVs. I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but I only use the 1 splitter. The only thing that matters I guess, is that I'm happy with the quality and the lack of clutter.

[Uncle Bob]

For the TV side, I have used, with great success in the past (rural areas) an amplifier (just one of many types available). However, if you have alot of interference, it just amplifies that as well, so then you may need a filter of some sort. It took some experimenting, but eventually I had a real nice signal. Then, I moved into the city in Bellingham! Oh, well. I have a great signal as well as broadband internet (yahoo!) which I've enjoyed for over 4 years now.

[josh2139]

SteveI how would i be able to split the cable that comes into the house? Would i have to go to the cable mainbox? If so i thought messing with that could terminate my cable service. Also if i am using a splitter and watching cable tv does that mean It's splitting well? Uncle bob would your cable not come in at all? Is that why you needed to buy a amplifier? Cause like i think my signal is strong, tv's with split cable comes in fine for me.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by josh2139
Uncle bob would your cable not come in at all? Is that why you needed to buy a amplifier? Cause like i think my signal is strong, tv's with split cable comes in fine for me.

As I said, I lived in a rural area, where we were 'at the end of the line' and had a weak signal, that's why the amp and filter worked so well! I wanted to kick the tv properly when Howard Cossel came on and needed a good signal to do so. (there, I dated myself properly!)

[SteveI]

Originally posted by josh2139
SteveI how would i be able to split the cable that comes into the house? ....

It all depends on the physical location of stuff. When I bought my house a few years ago, it didn't even have a cable connection. When I added cable.. I was with the technician and looked over his shoulder and told him exactly what I wanted. The way we worked it out:

Cable line originates under ground, and comes up at the house.
Cable goes up the wall outside, into a vent in the crawlspace in the attic.
In the crawlspace, the line gets a 4 way splitter,
Each line goes down to a different room.

It will all come down to where it CAN be split.. If you have options, try get the cablemodem splice from the main cable coming into your house. You need access to the cable, where you can work on it... It really depends on current placement..

[josh2139]

SteveI so in your case would you try to run the internet line from the 4 way splitter? Or run a 2 way splitter before that 4 way splitter and have one cable go directly to the modem and then have the other cable connect to the 4 way splitter that goes to the wall jacks? Also does this involve the main box cause i don't want to mess with that. So basically i have to find where the main cable splits and just run a coax cable (does it matter what kind) from there. I'm about to just get the cable company to install the modem. The only reason i was hesitant of doing that is because they charged my dad 140 dollars and all they did was run the cable from a jack in the room to the modem, and hooked the cat5 to the comp. To me thats not worth 140 bucks. But if they would run it from the main line it might be worth it just letting them do it.

[SteveI]

If you let them do it, they'll take the quickest and easiest path... You could do that yourself.

[josh2139]

Quickest and easiest=not best, right? Anyway I went to see the jack that i was planning on using which is in my loft. Anyway as it turns out its not a jack at all. It's a coax cable coming out of a plate in the wall. I took off the plate and i saw the one coax cable that was coming out of the plate was hooked onto another coax cable. Also their was another black coax cable that was just behind the plate. So there was 2 coax cables there and I am not sure why.

[josh2139]

Okay I have found where my main cable comes in, my basement. Now i just have to figure out a way how to run it to the 2nd floor. Any ideas?

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by josh2139
Okay I have found where my main cable comes in, my basement. Now i just have to figure out a way how to run it to the 2nd floor. Any ideas?

Sometimes you can fish it up an inside wall that has no insulation. How old is the house?

[josh2139]

It's a fairly new house. I have another idea also. I could switch the the cables so that the one coming in my loft is on a direct splitter from the main source. Then just run a cable from the loft to the 2nd floor. I think that would be the easiest way. Or I could do the same thing with a wall jack in the room next to my computers. But that has 2 wall jacks right above one another. Does that mean its split right behind the wall plate? Or are they two individual cables run from the main source?

[Superman]

Originally posted by josh2139
Okay I have found where my main cable comes in, my basement. Now i just have to figure out a way how to run it to the 2nd floor. Any ideas?

Run it through the heating duct

That's what I did

[josh2139]

Originally posted by Superman53142


Run it through the heating duct

That's what I did

Yea i could try to do that. Btw i was told i woud need a 5-1000 mhz splitter and RJ 6 cable is this true? Also is the type of coax cable RJ 6 that the cable company runs?

[dabaerman]

Originally posted by SteveI
If you let them do it, they'll take the quickest and easiest path... You could do that yourself.

Yes. the cable guy put a new 4 way splitter on the main line. two
lines recieved a filter at the splitter. line 3 is split in my computer
room. again a new splitter that like SteveI said is for high speed
digital cable. straight to the modem and a filter to the TV. Cat5 to
all the pc's. works great. all the parts can be found a RadioShlak.
all of the co-ax is run on the outside of my house. it was built b4
they started to pre wire homes for all the good stuff.