03-08-2010, 10:30 PM

My son is having serious problems with his computer when he is gaming. His latency is so high that he can't play his games much of the time.

He is connected wireless to our D-Links 524.

I was wondering if we could use a 100 foot cable to hard-wire his computer to the router? Would that be too long of a cable ... ???

03-08-2010, 11:41 PM

Originally Posted by vja4Him

My son is having serious problems with his computer when he is gaming. His latency is so high that he can't play his games much of the time.

He is connected wireless to our D-Links 524.

I was wondering if we could use a 100 foot cable to hard-wire his computer to the router? Would that be too long of a cable ... ???

The theoretical CAT5 limit is around 330ft., so you will be OK with a 100' run. You need to have quality termination on the longer lengths and keep the kinks to a minimum. Store termination does not always mean better, I have made cables myself and had less loss than one that comes out of a package.

03-09-2010, 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by JohnCL

The theoretical CAT5 limit is around 330ft., so you will be OK with a 100' run. You need to have quality termination on the longer lengths and keep the kinks to a minimum. Store termination does not always mean better, I have made cables myself and had less loss than one that comes out of a package.

We would have at least ten kinks total, running the 100 foot cable to my son's room. If we run the cable to the living room instead, we should be able to get by with only 50 feet of cable and at least eight kinks. We could make some of the kinks more rounded.

03-09-2010, 08:40 AM

Before wireless became prevalent, I wired network ports into several rooms in my house. I'd guess that at least one of them was a run of over 100ft, and I had no problems at all with it.

As JohnCL has said, make sure you put the connectors on properly.

03-09-2010, 08:44 AM

Originally Posted by vja4Him

We would have at least ten kinks total, running the 100 foot cable to my son's room. If we run the cable to the living room instead, we should be able to get by with only 50 feet of cable and at least eight kinks. We could make some of the kinks more rounded.

I mean serious kinks or twists in the cable. Going arounds corners and such is no problem. When pulling cable from a box kinks and twists can happen and go unnoticed which can result in loss. Have fun!

03-09-2010, 08:50 AM

You will be fine with a 100 foot cable and store bought should be fine for this application. The kinks, as stated, would have to be serious to mess with the signal.

03-09-2010, 10:12 AM

If you're going to run a cable, use CAT5E or CAT6 at this stage in the game at a minimum, not just CAT5. I have a CAT5E 100' run and have achieved network transfer speeds up to 90 MBps, just shy of full gigabit speeds. With a CAT5, you'll be limited to 10 MBps.

03-09-2010, 11:10 AM

Can you even find Cat5 in a store anymore? I think that most, if not all is 5E or 6.

03-09-2010, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by DaFlake

Can you even find Cat5 in a store anymore? I think that most, if not all is 5E or 6.

You would have to look really hard, and would be looking at some really old stock.

03-09-2010, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by bobtomay

If you're going to run a cable, use CAT5E or CAT6 at this stage in the game at a minimum, not just CAT5. I have a CAT5E 100' run and have achieved network transfer speeds up to 90 MBps, just shy of full gigabit speeds. With a CAT5, you'll be limited to 10 MBps.

Not exactly true. IEEE 802.3ab defines GigE transmission over UTP 5, 5e, or 6 cable.

While I agree to using the best cable currently in market, you certainly will not be limited to 10Mbps using standard CAT5.

03-09-2010, 03:56 PM

You can still find packaged Cat 5 in stores. Don't know if anyone here is from Southern California, but at this electronics mega-store called Fry's, you can find old Cat 5 for dirt cheap. If you do go to Fry's, just make sure that you know *exactly* what you are looking for. Their staff makes the people that work at Burger King or TSA look like Ph.Ds

03-10-2010, 02:42 AM

My wired home (see earlier post) was with CAT5 cable and easily got more than 10Mbps. It wasn't far off 100Mbps on the occasions when I bothered to check it.

03-10-2010, 02:54 AM

Originally Posted by vja4Him

D-Links 524.

Here's your problem. I had that router a while back and while it was ok for simple tasks like browsing, when it came to gaming or heavy downloading it was pure garbage.

Another option for you might be to upgrade to a more capable router, perhaps of the 802.11n variety so that you get increased speed, range and far superior performance.

03-10-2010, 06:31 AM

I have had the issue using CAT5 cable on my own network and was limited to a max throughput of 11MBps. Didn't solve the problem for two days and after I had ordered a new NIC figuring it had to be the card.

What I found is that CAT5 is affected by file size. And if you're moving GB and larger files around your network, you don't want it.

03-10-2010, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Kash

Here's your problem. I had that router a while back and while it was ok for simple tasks like browsing, when it came to gaming or heavy downloading it was pure garbage.

Another option for you might be to upgrade to a more capable router, perhaps of the 802.11n variety so that you get increased speed, range and far superior performance.

I'm considering on getting the DIR-825 router.