# Pre-wire question - Networking and Cat5e



## TCinGA (Feb 17, 2008)

I want to hardwire at least 4 devices to my home network - AppleTV, PS3, Uverse DVR and and Oppo 93 player. These are all located in a rack in the theater room. 

Should I pull a Cat5e wire for each device (+ a couple extras) back to my router or should I just add a ethernet switch in the rack and pull one wire back to the router ? Do I create a performance limitation by just using a switch in the rack ?


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## grinthock (Dec 17, 2010)

As someone who does this for a living....

Always pull back to your "closet" don't plan to put equipment in there, it's just bad planning at the start.

There is a limitation if you put a switch in there, because technically all of those devices "share" that one link back to the other side -- but because you probably wont use more than one at a time -- you won't ever notice.

In my theatre I am pulling in minimum of 2 Cat6A in all locations - and in areas where I need it I am pulling whatever is required + 50% (min 2 extra) -- overkill? yes -- but considering what you can do with Cat6 these days (extend hdmi, phone, ethernet, WAP, blah blah blah) - it's cheap and easy.

BTW: Don't pull anything but CAT6, the price difference is negliable and the performance difference is significant -- not to you today -- but later on you will notice (cat5 is gonna do what you need today 100%, but not in the future)


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## TCinGA (Feb 17, 2008)

Thanks - I'll take your advice on the CAT6 wire (even though I just bought the Cat5e wire a few hours ago....). I'm pre wiring 3 other rooms as well. My plan was to pull 2 ethernet lines and 1 coax to each room. 

Are you saying I should go ahead and pull (I was thinking a total of 6 lines ) Cat6 wires from my AV closet back to the location of the residential gateway (thats the UVerse router). Leave all the networking gear out of the av closet and just have a wall plate to connect devices in the av closet.

There will have to be a switch somewhere after the router - but I was wondering if it would be any advantage to have the high bandwidth devices connected direct to the router


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## nholmes1 (Oct 7, 2010)

You're internet connection will be your bottleneck for the foreseeable future, especially if pulling cat6. Depending on the distance from your router to the equipment it actually may be smarter to use the switch as that will regenerate the signal. Yes if you were putting in servers and they were running websites/database 24x7 I could see the need for dedicated runs but not with consumer A/V gear.


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## TCinGA (Feb 17, 2008)

Well it's definately easier to run 1 or 2 cables to the av closet and I have rack space for the switch. Sounds like it might come down to preference, and if I'm running out of wire....


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## grinthock (Dec 17, 2010)

Ok you won't notice a speed difference between 5E and 6... If you are -- then you are using cable, or something else is wrong. 5E is rated to 1000MB -- and you don't get 1000MB internet...

If you are running out -- get more -- it's cheap -- look around it can be had -- mono price has it for VERY reasonable prices.

Switches are a contingency later - plan now - run the cable.


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