Cat5 cable and sockets - can you put a double socket on the end?

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Eoghan

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My son is moaning that his XBox is suffering from "dropped connections" and "lag". Thinking of putting a cat5 cable in the sunroom running through the attic. This will give him a more reliable connection and get him out of his bedroom (developing social skills?).

Can you put a double socket onto the wall to connect through the one cat5 cable going directly into the modem?

Is there a limit to the number of connections you can run off one cable?


We all use wifi but the direct cable seems to be better
 
My son is moaning that his XBox is suffering from "dropped connections" and "lag". Thinking of putting a cat5 cable in the sunroom running through the attic. This will give him a more reliable connection and get him out of his bedroom (developing social skills?).
Can you put a double socket onto the wall to connect through the one cat5 cable going directly into the modem?
Is there a limit to the number of connections you can run off one cable?

We all use wifi but the direct cable seems to be better

We had a combination cable modem and router, but the router just didn't cut it. We were resetting the modem/router 5 times a day. I now use the combo unit as just a modem and bought a better router (TP-Link) that could handle all our devices. We get up to 250 Mbps, and right now, with only three of us in the home, we have 33 devices connected. Most are WiFi, but maybe ten units are wired. We never have any trouble--like once a month. Cat5e or 6 is better, but a Cat5 cable can handle most home needs. Do we use the bandwidth? We sometimes run over our 1.7 TB limit.
 
Can you put a double socket onto the wall to connect through the one cat5 cable going directly into the modem?

So you want to split before it goes into the modem? I'd probably look for a modem-router that had multiple cable outs in addition to the wifi.
 
We had a combination cable modem and router, but the router just didn't cut it. We were resetting the modem/router 5 times a day. I now use the combo unit as just a modem and bought a better router (TP-Link) that could handle all our devices. We get up to 250 Mbps, and right now, with only three of us in the home, we have 33 devices connected. Most are WiFi, but maybe ten units are wired. We never have any trouble--like once a month. Cat5e or 6 is better, but a Cat5 cable can handle most home needs. Do we use the bandwidth? We sometimes run over our 1.7 TB limit.

33 devices? I thought I had a lot with 5 - 6 lol
 
I think I am realising the vagaries of wifi with five amazon echo dots connecting, a roberts internet radio, four laptops and an XBox. We have a 35Mbs package but it can drop as low as five over the wifi. What is more concerning are the dropped connections which seem to be fairly frequent.

The router has 4 rj45 outputs which is more than enough for me - only the XBox and my laptops have rj45 sockets.

Thinking of putting two faceplate sockets in, one for the XBox and one for where I usually sit.

One of the big problems here in the UK is that BT has a policy of only having one socket in a house. Many houses have several phone sockets which allows them to plug in phones but these are being disconnected any time BT engineers visit the property!
 
You need a separate cable for each socket. They can't be split like phone lines. I would just run two CAT6 cables anywhere you think you need them. The labor is about the same and you may find you need the redundancy.

Now the question behind the question is how to get better performance. It sounds like you have a low quality, consumer-grade, combination router/WiFi (or you have a big house or interior concrete block walls, in which case, the following advice will need to be modified). Get something like a UniFi AP AC Lite and turn off the WiFi on your router. No need to run any cable.
 
They can't be split like phone lines.

I remember one weekend project where they ran a single line into a switch or splitter on the conference room table that we could plug 4 laptops into. The IT guys set it up.
 
I remember one weekend project where they ran a single line into a switch or splitter on the conference room table that we could plug 4 laptops into. The IT guys set it up.

Yes, you can do that with a network switch, but you can't just splice wires like with a phone line. The switch is a fine solution if you already have a single cable run, but if you are running cable anyway, it is often better to run the number of cables you need.
 
I would use a wifi extender. There are two units that each plug into the mains sockets. The modem connects into one unit via an ethernet lead and the xbox plugs into the other unit via an ethernet lead. These extenders also boost the wifi signal too if you were in a part of the house where your signal was weak.
 
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