Testing Cable

Just because you've got a nice structured cabling set up installed that doesn't
actually mean that it works right.

So what we have to do now is actually go through the process of testing all of

these runs.

So to do that we need testing equipment and I've got all kinds of cool testers
here.

But one of the things you need to keep in mind is that when you're testing the
cable there's one thing recontest cable that you hold in your hands and you have
both ends.

And then there's testing the cable where one end of the connection might be 100
meters away from the other end of the connection.

So that's what we talk about with testers.

We're always dealing with a remote piece and a main piece.

So like with this tester here I can break into two pieces.

And the reason I can do that is because I can be on one end and then on the other
and that's far away and test both sides.

So let's go through the process of testing starting with wiretap.

Now I've got two different testers here right here is inexpensive about a $50
tester that you can pick up at just about any home electronics store over here
though.

Is a much more expensive tester.

This particular tester which is made by fluke corporation goes for right now just
shy of $700.

So let me show you the difference.

First of all start over here as we discuss wire map.

Now why are maps simply means that all of the wires are punched into the right
place on each end of the cable.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to plug into both ends and you get some juice
and this cable is actually messed up.

This is kind of cool as you watch this area here.

Normally if things are working exactly right you'll get a very different code.

Let me punch a nice pretty one and just see you get an idea of what it's supposed
to look like.

Now this is a perfect wire map cable.

What it's doing it's comparing pin one into on one end to one and two on the other.
And it goes through each one so it goes 1 2 3 6 4 5 7 8.

All green.

What that's telling us is that everything is in the right order now.

Now that we understand what right looks like.

Let's look at a bad one again.

So as we watch this one march along you'll see one in two doesn't light up.

That tells us that one in two aren't even crimped in there.

They're simply missing their holes three and six is OK.

But you see how it goes red from three to six and four and five read to read it
saying that four and five is crossed with three and six so there's a mess up there
as well.

And then seven and eight doesn't light up at all that means on one end or the
other.

Just like with one or two I've completely failed to get seven and eight even
punched into the right spot.

So that's a great example of wire map.

So if your map means each individual wire is punched down to the right location.

Continuity means that it's actually connected at all.

As we just saw on that test pairs one and two and seven and eight didn't even light
up at all.

That's a continuity problem.

Let's do continuity again with the exact same patch cables except this time let's
use the more advanced tester.

It makes a little bit more clear explanation.

By the way this is actually called the micro scanner from Fluke corporation and it
does a lot of different things so I'm going to go ahead and just get it turned on
and let me just.

It's got two holes up at the top.

I'm going to punch in both ends.

And as you take a look at this you'll see that there's a one two three four five
six seven eight and one two three four five six seven eight.

That's telling us that not only is there continuity between each one of these
connections but everyone's in the right order.

So that's what we want to see for a straight through cable.

Let's go ahead and put Mr. ugly back in and see what happens.
Yipe OK.

So what we're looking at here is there's no connections on 1 2 3 6 7 and 8 and pin

7 and 8 are incorrectly wired to pins 4 and 5 on the other end.

So that's one of the reasons I like these micro scanners that's why they're worth
the extra money to me is that they're a little bit easier for me to read and figure
out.

So we've got wire map and we have continuity.

There's a third thing we want to test for and that's called distance and in order
to test for distance we need to use something called a time domain Reflektor ometer
or TVR.

As one of the reasons there's a big difference in price between Mr. $50 and Mr..

Close to $700 right here is that this guy has a built in TDR function.

The EIA/TIA 568 rules specify that an individual horizontal run can be no more than
90 meters.

Now that ties in nicely with the ethernet 100 meters.

The reason being is that you're going to need a patch cable on each end.

So by keeping it at 90 meters that guarantees you have enough room up to 10 meters

for patch cables alone.

So what we need to be able to do is test this guy right here to make sure that he's
within the 90 meter TTR limit so to do that we typically do something like this.

So I'm going to plug in and what I'm going to do this is number 16 so I'll plug in
with number 16 here so I'll have that up and running.

And then on this and well usually I'll leave the patch cable in and I'll use a
remote device.

And I'll plug in with this and that way it creates a connection all the way
including the patch cables from the workspace all the way through the horizontal
run into the equipment room.

And one of the cool things about this guy is I can actually reset this and it can
give me a link.

In this case I know it's way under 90 meters so there's not much to look at but
that's what we call a TTR.

Now keep in mind that TDR is not unique to unshielded twisted pair cable fiber
optic also uses TDR as they call it an oh TDR for optical TTR and it works exactly
the same way you plug an optical TTR into one end.

You have your big long fiber optic run.

Plugs into a wall outlet on the other side and then you can do the exact same
thing.

Now obviously the distances are a lot longer but do keep in mind that TDR is not
unique just to an shielded twisted pair you can do it with fiber optic just as
well.

So those are three big tests you want to test for wire map you want to test for
connections continuity and you want to run a TDR.

Those are about the only test that we do ourselves.

Other tests are done and to do these tests you actually have to get big very
expensive like $10000 boxes.

And even though they're expensive boxes they're not very fancy.

They plug in to each end of a horizontal run.

There's usually a big button called test and you press the button and either passes
or fails.

These guys do all kinds of interesting tests with names like near and cross-talk
foreign crosstalk crosstalk is if you're old enough to remember LAN telephones when
you would pick up an old telephone you pick it up and hear a little crackle.

What's happening is you actually have interference between pairs on an individual

cable and this interference manifests as this crackling noise or what's known as
CROSSTALK.

Too much crosstalk will actually keep a cable from working at a particular level.

Keep in mind you've probably spent a lot of money to pay a cable installer to put
in for example cat six a cable which means it needs to run at 10 gigabits per
second.

The cable installer has to certify his runs to verify that they are capable of
that.

That is in essence they put a little checkbox saying we've installed everything and
we guarantee you that it'll run at whatever you've paid for in terms of rating.

And that's where things like cross-talk really come into play.

Cross-talk is measured in decibels.

So it's just a decimal value.

And what will happen is these big expensive testers will have a USP connection or
something.

You plug it into a laptop.

It makes a nice word document in each individual run.

It shows the amount of crosstalk and everything.

And that's what a cable installer will hand you to prove to you that they've done
everything exactly right.

So when it comes to little problems for example continuity wire map and TDR we have
the tools to do that.
But when it comes to the big hairy stuff in particular crosstalk that's not our job
that's the job of professional installers.

We just need to be able to read that piece of paper and verify Yep you've done a
great job.

Understand how to read and interpret the wiremap feature of a cable tester

Continuity testing will show if the cable has any breaks

A time domain relectometer (TDR) will shos the length of the cable and help
pinpoint mid-cable breaks

Troubleshooting Structured Cables

When your network goes down about the last place you're going to start looking for
suspects is within the structured cabling system itself.

However it does happen.

So what I want to do now is talk about what can happen in terms of problems within
the structure cabling unit.

Now to do this I want to break things down a little bit.

We really have three main pieces.

We've got the work area.

We've got the horizontal cabling.

And then we have the equipment room.

So what I want to do in this episode is concentrate on classic structured cabling

problems that take place right over here in the work area.

Now the first thing we want to do when we're suspecting that we have a problem is
we're going to take a look over within the operating system some place there's
usually some kind of clue.

And we looked down here in the lower right hand corner here and Windows 8 that
there's something telling us that the operating system does not see that we're
connected.

So in this case.

Now keep in mind network plus doesn't really care about what operating system
you're using.

What they do care about is that you can look at something and be able to get an
idea of where to look for the problem.

So here within Windows 8 what I'm going to do is we bring a device manager and
within Windows 8 what we're going to be looking at is network and sharing center
which is pretty similar to Vista and 7 as well.

So we've got some kind of queue here that's telling us that we don't have some form
of network access.
So that's the first thing you want to do is verify that the operating system itself
sees a problem.

So if you suspect that you've got a problem with your structured cabling.

Well first of all verify do you have a link like so check if there's a link light
on your system.

Fantastic.

Go all the way over to the switch and see if there's a link right over there to
remember if you don't have two link lights.

You're not going to be in good shape.

So make sure you've got link lights on both sides.

Also watch for some basic things going to device manager if you have windows and
double check the network card is a network card enabled.

Do you have good IP information.

We shouldn't allow simple things that are not really associated with structured
cabling to confuse us.

Also keep in mind that you can have bad device drivers.

It's rare but it does happen.

The last thing you might want to consider is something called a loop back a
loopback is a tiny little plug.

Look something like this.

Now if you take a close look at this a loop that is nothing more than an RJ 45 that
connects pin 1 to pin 3 and pin 2 to pin 6.

So this is a loopback adapter.

If I'm using a loopback adapter I can do some fairly interesting things.

Now keep in mind what I'm going to tell you is the network plus rule set not
necessarily real world according to network plus I can take this little adapter
plug it in and run a standard Ping's I'm going to run a ping real quick so you can
see I'm set up to do a ping and you can see I'm getting a reply.

So with the loop back plug in if I get this in theory what that's telling me is
that the network card itself is good.

The little pin connectors on the network card is good.

It's supposed to be a good thing.

However the reality is is that most network cards whenever they see a loop that
connection like this ping will within their own circuitry without ever going out to
the network card itself without actually using the physical connections will simply
loop it back.

So you really can't trust it.

Note for the network plus.

But in the real world loopback plugs are kind of ancient history and we don't
really use them anymore for Ethernet Connections.

There are some network cards that do support it but they will invariably add their
own control panel applet and they're going to be expensive cards not the ones that
are built in on your motherboard that will have those types of features.

The other thing to watch out for and this is the big one when it comes to problems
in the work area is your patch cable patch cables are notorious for breaking I call
it the cleaning person syndrome.

There's somebody back there vacuuming and they hit that thing and they can cause
damage.

I would not tell you how many times I've been embarrassed and I'm trying to do all
these diagnostic and somebody goes trying new cable and tada it magically works.

The last thing to worry about is this guy right here.

The actual plug that goes into the wall is subject to a lot of damage.

It's not at all uncommon for people to be yanking on this thing and causing
problems.

And if you think you've got a problem it's not a bad idea to go in there and simply
replace that little plug with a new one.

It's not that hard to do.

And it's an easy quick and dirty test.

Those are the big things to look out for in terms of structured cabling issues in
the work area.

Loopback plugs test the NIC's ability to send and recieve

Loopback plugs are not effective (But Network+ thinks that they are!)

Patch cables and wall outlets are the most common part of structured cabling to
fail

When it comes to problems within a structured cable environment the number one
place to look is always going to be in the work area the work area is exposed to
crazy users and clean people and all kinds of folks who can abuse that part of the
system and it's usually where most problems manifest themselves.

However from time to time we can actually have problems within the equipment room
or the MTF whatever you want to call it.

In these cases you're going to have to be looking for issues that tend to affect
more than one user.

Here's a great example what happens if the switch itself goes down with this switch
goes down.

Every computer connected to it is also going to go down.

So watch out for questions on the network.

Plus the talk about things like everybody in the network is down versus just Tommy
and his computer going down.

It'll help you figure out those individual questions.

One individual big pieces of equipment in the equipment room go down.

The first thing I'm going to be suspecting is the electricity.

Electricity can be bad.

And it happens all the time.

So a good volt meter to be able to test the voltage to make sure that you're
getting good electricity to your equipment room is absolutely important.

Along with that we have tools like voltage monitors a voltage monitor is a device
that we plug in and it will actually watch the voltage over an extended period of
time.

This will help for little problems like at 5:30 when all the elevators start
kicking in in your building and they start causing all the SAG's it's voltage
monitors.

I hope you diagnose stuff like that.

Most of the time the fix for these is pretty simple.

You get UPS's uninterruptible power supplies installed 19 inch equipment rack
mounted UPSs.

And though most the time take pretty good care of dealing with those types of
issues.

Also keep in mind there are electronics so they're not going to like too much
moisture.

They're not going to like too much heat.

So we have all these different types of environmental and temperature monitors that
you can actually put into the equipment closet and watch what's taking place to be
able to Terman if there's any problems like that.

The other problem that can take place within structured cabling are problems with
the horizontal run itself.

Now these are incredibly rare.

Keep in mind the horizontal run the way we treat it by putting it behind patch
panels and wall outlets is to leave it alone to not perturb it.

So as a result of that we want to make sure that it's never never messed with.

But from time to time things do happen.

If you think you've got a problem with horizontal run your best buddy is going to
be using your TTR put a TDR onto the patch panel at your wall outlet.

And if the TDR says that it's only running 18 feet and you know that it's bought
out I don't know.

Sixty five feet over to the closet.

You know you got to break brakes are extremely rare though.

The other big thing to watch out for is interference and this is the one thing that
will drive horizontal runs crazy.

Now keep in mind that the guys who installed your horizontal runs took their cable
certifier and that cable certifier verifies all kinds of stuff and make sure that
there's low cross-talk are acceptable for whatever your level is.

It can actually listen to the amount of interference that's running along that
horizontal run.

And when they put that in there they certify.

That's why it's called the cable certifier that it's going to work at whatever
speed you've paid them to make it work at.

However that doesn't take care of things that happened retroactively.

For example if somebody installs a new air conditioning system and someone put the
motors a little bit too close to the cables running up to the ceiling you're going
to have issues that will take place.

Now a lot of times these issues can give you clues as to what the problem is.

It only happens when it hot.

It only happens when it's five o'clock and people are doing things so look for
questions like that on the network plus to give you some clues.

Keep in mind that until the twisted pair is very very susceptible to interference
issues and the only way you're going to be able to verify that is to run some type
of cable tester in particular a high end certifier which usually means you're going
to pay somebody to come back in to look for any type of interference.

While we're talking about interference there's one little weird thing that's on the
network plus I want to mention when you have fiber optic cabling fiber optic
cabling in particular multimode fiber optic cabling is separable to something
called modal distortion.

Yep I said that right.

Moldable distortion modal distortion simply means that when you have light
travelling down a piece of fiber optic cable light travels in different modes.

Now keep in mind that if you have a regular LCD that Hadley D will have a color so
it's not a wavelength thing.

It's kind of like how the light comes out of the gate and how it bounces along.

And what will happen is over time what you think is this perfect beam of light by
the time it gets to the other end kind of breaks down into kind of a fuzzy beam.
And now that's only going to happen on multimode cables on single mode because it's
a laser.

Lasers do not suffer from multimode distortion.

So keep in mind that subtle difference for the network plus itself the bottom line
is is that if you're going to be having trouble within your structured cabling
system nine times out of 10.

Don't go look it in the equipment room go over to the work area because that's
where most of the trouble takes place.

Voltage monitors track and record problems

Environmental/temperature monitors track and record problems with heat and humidity

TDR's are great tools to check for breaks on horizontal runs

Using a Toner and Probe

I installed this power outlet and this RJ 45 connection about a year ago the idea
here is I'm going to plug a projector in up here and the projector is going to be
networked where it's going to be really cool.

Now I'm getting ready to install the projector but I've got a problem.

And the problem is I forgot where this connection goes into my patch panel over in
my equipment room.

So in order to figure out which connection in my patch panel corresponds to this

wall outlet I've got to use this little guide.

This is a fox and a hound Fox and Hound are registered trademarks of Triplette
corporation.

So the more generic term is a tone generator and a tone probe.

The idea is simple.

This guy creates a tone and then this guy as you get close to whoever he's
connected to then generates that tone so you can find cables.

Now this is an RJ-11 connection on it and it actually for the record Arjay 11 snap
and RJ 45 is just fine and they're cool.

They just snap into the center like that.

And what I can do is I can run back with this tone probe back to my patch panel and
figure out where he's connected.

OK.

So here I am at my little home patch panel.

So this is a little patch panel I installed this when I was setting up all my wired
networking.

What you don't have a wired network in your house come on anyway.
So now I'm going to use my tone probe and I'm going to just punch it into this big
cluster of cables here.

Now you'll notice that I've actually unplugged the switch.

And the reason I unplug it is because the network activity will make a lot of
interference and make it hard to hear this thing.

So I'd go ahead and unplugged it.

So was going to hold the button down.

All right so I can actually trace it down to an individual cable.

Well what I need is to know exactly which outlet it is.

So perfect.

So it's the second outlet.

So what I'm going to need to do now is I don't want to do this again so I'm going
to write home theater right on the label of the patch panel to make sure I don't
have to go through this rigmarole again.

But that's what a tone probe and a tone generator are all about.

They're designed to help you find cables when you forget to label and you've got
nothing but a big pile.

These guys can be your best friend.

Tone generators can tone probes are used to locate cables and connections

Tone generators create the signal for the probes

Tone probes translate the signal into an audible tone