I'm helping a friend set up his LAN. He's using wired ethernet. He had CAT5 ethernet cable installed into his walls, but when we went to radio shack to get the parts we needed to terminate the ends of the cables, we could only find one type of ethernet/phone jack combo plate that would accommodate his old-school phone system. (The wiring in this system uses black, red, yellow, and green wires (1 or each). Newer stuff uses CAT3 with 6 wires.

We bought the wallplate that we needed, and brought it home to install. The phone part was easy, but we found out that the Ethernet part uses CAT3 colors, while our cat5 wiring uses CAT5 colors.

Here's the wire colors that we have in the cat5 cable: (1 of each)

Blue & white, blue, Green & white, Green, brown, brown & white, orange, orange & white.


The cat 3 colors are

white, black, green, yellow, red, blue, brown, orange.

Heres a picture of the way the wires go on the faceplate. (they bolt on with screws)



Here's a table of where the different colored wires are supposed to go:



The colors are totally different, and we have no idea about which color corresponds to which. Any feedback would be appreciated.

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Most people regard me as the dark and immoral side of Massassi. At least I'm getting what I want out of life.

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited February 22, 2004).]

It doesn't matter as long as the connection is straight through, meaning that if you do blue/white = white, blue = black, etc. on one faceplate, you must do the same for any other faceplate.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

A CAT3 rated ethernet jack won't necessarily allow CAT5 speeds. "Old school" phone wires can be hooked up to the newer CAT3 RJ-11 jacks, so you could simply take the plate back and get a newer one that's rated for CAT5.

Anyway, CAT3 and CAT5 use the same color code, and that chart you posted tells you exactly how to hook it up. Wh/Bl is blue & white, Bl/Wh is blue, and so on. That other color code you posted is for old telephone lines.

[This message has been edited by Argath (edited February 22, 2004).]

Why don't they just say blue instead of Bl/Wh?

Also, i know that thats the only type that Radio shack currently had in stock that would allow the old phone line configuration.
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Most people regard me as the dark and immoral side of Massassi. At least I'm getting what I want out of life.



[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited February 22, 2004).]

CAT5 is 8 wires. There are 4 colors and then 4 white/colored ones. Like blue and a blue and white. But yeah just do the same thing everywhere and you will be fine.

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http://www.sporkaudio.com

I hate the wire coloring in all cables. They have such retarded schemes, those twist colors are a pain because they appear different at different angles. Want some color ideas? Go get an 8 or 16 box of Crayolas.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Phone lines are phone lines. All you have to do is convert between the color codes.

it gets worse. The cable in the wall is really crappy cable with brittle plastic insulation (fire code my a**) , and the white markings on the two-tone cables rub off easily, so I have to constantly strip new cable to see which wire i'm working with. The orange wires and orange-white wires are marked so poorly that they are nearly ambiguous.

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Most people regard me as the dark and immoral side of Massassi. At least I'm getting what I want out of life.

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited February 22, 2004).]