Cat 5 Cable and Gigabit Router----OK????

[johnrr6]

I would like to "move up" to a Gigabit router from my trusty, reliable Linksys BESFR 41.

I currently have fairly decent Cat 5 cabling throughout my house which took me days (a couple of years ago) to string--------around carpet edges----drilling holes etc.

I don't know if my wife can stand another "cabling project" in my house....

Which leads me to the question.......

How much do I lose with a gigabit router hooked to Cat5 instead of Cat6????

Is this one of those cases where "most" cat 5 will work fine with no loss -------kinda like the USB1 to USB2 cables----where dealers claimed you had to have a "USB2" capable cable----when a USB1 was perfectly fine????

Or am I truely going to lose a lot of bandwidth to the point of it being a worthless upgrade without the Cat6 cabling???

Any help most appreciated.

Happy New Year!!

John

[shaihulud]

There is a difference with Cat5 and Cat6. 5 is used at 150Hz and 6 is at 200Hz. Cables rated higher are of no benefit since this is the standard rate for the connection used. 5e would get you a little further than 5. However, I personally would do Cat 6 and use STP where necessary (6inches aways from power). It does make a difference and is nothing like USB's 1 and 2 cables. To note, some of Intel's Ethernet devices work well with Cat5 and are noted on the box. I highly recommend going Intel and PCIe if possible. But you still can be limited by the sending or the receiving computers ability to do such.

[Rick_EE]

We have a few computers here at work that have gigabit on CAT5 cables. I don't know what kind of throughput we are getting, but it is noticably faster than 100Mb. I am sure we are not using it to potential.

[Underwater Mike]

My home network runs fine at gigabit speeds on 5e cable, but I do not have any runs over 100 feet. How long is your longest cable length?

[johnrr6]

Originally Posted by Underwater Mike

My home network runs fine at gigabit speeds on 5e cable, but I do not have any runs over 100 feet. How long is your longest cable length?

Nothing over 100 feet.

So hopefully the cable won't be a big problem.....

I'll set up with existing cables----measure the performance

If OK-----will leave it alone.

BTW---what is consided "good "performance for a 10/100 network----and what is considerd good performance for a Gigabit network???

[SRTDodge05]

Cat5e and Cat6 works fine with gigabit, Cat5 you'll be limited on how long you can make the length of the wire. I guess the only way to really know is to try it.