Advice on best way to retrofit wired Ethernet.

Posted by: Sloop John B on 23 August 2016

Early next year we will be getting a "deep retrofit " done on our house. Basically going back to bare walls and (re) insulating. 

We don't need a full rewiring but I thought it's a good time to have some wired Ethernet around the house.

What's the best way to do this? Is it just to have a mega switch beside current cable router and run a cable to each room and end it in a female socket?

Are there options?

Are there pitfalls?

What sort of cable is recommended?

Shoud I try and cover the house or simply get it to the 3 rooms that I have Naim boxes in and let wifi and Ethernet over power cover the other rooms?

 

Posted on: 01 March 2017 by jon h
Bart posted:

Rather than 3 or 4 cables to each room, necessitating a huge switch with lines that may well never be used, why not plan on a small unmanaged switch in any room where multiple devices MAY be installed.

because that doesnt help when the singular cable to that room breaks. you dont have a backup

and small unmanaged switches are fine until you move around and they get confused. they wont support spanning tree, for starters. Going round power cycling every one of these damn things to flush out their cache can be a huge pain

Posted on: 01 March 2017 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Sloop John B posted:

Richard has kindly re-opened this thread for me as we're getting close to what  Sir Alex once called  "squeaky bum" time in the renovation process so I have a few clarifications and further questions.

  1. Ideally should all the CAT 6 cable be shielded?
  2. Should it be CAT6 or CAT6a?
  3. What would be the best way to include a run of  fibre connection to the main hi-fi rig?

 

Thanks,

John.

 

.sjb

1) no, and Cat5e is also totally adequate

2) as above, but if you prefer the idea of using non Cat5e then regular Cat 6 is fine and will be easier to work with than Cat 6a

3) currently Naim don't use fibre SFPs so there is no advantage of using fibre to the Hi-Fi rig, as you will need to use fibre/twisted pair converter which are often of questionable quality in my opinion as many are aimed at the consumer market. If you wish to use fibre between switches and or routers you will almost certainly need to use SFP compatible devices which rules out most consumer grade stuff.

As said above try to give yourself the option of running multiple Ethernet runs to each room, this allows use of Etherchannel and potentially Spanning Tree Protocol which can give a degree of fault tolerance and improved performance for the future.

Posted on: 01 March 2017 by charlesphoto

I also highly recommend in the listening room(s) to install in the open walls what we call 'rockwall' here in the Sates - soundproofing insulation material. Makes for a nice dead sounding room and helps noise bleed to other rooms. And don't forget to put it in the ceilings esp. 

Posted on: 02 March 2017 by Bart
jon honeyball posted:
Bart posted:

Rather than 3 or 4 cables to each room, necessitating a huge switch with lines that may well never be used, why not plan on a small unmanaged switch in any room where multiple devices MAY be installed.

because that doesnt help when the singular cable to that room breaks. you dont have a backup

and small unmanaged switches are fine until you move around and they get confused. they wont support spanning tree, for starters. Going round power cycling every one of these damn things to flush out their cache can be a huge pain

If I had 149 nas's storing an exa byte of data in my home, I might also be concerned.

With 2 Naim players, a nas, and a backup nas, why do I need a backup cable in my walls and why do I need "spanning tree."