Question about wiring in-wall CAT6

[barnabas1969]

I may be stating the obvious here, but you need to first realize that fishing walls down exterior walls is often very difficult due to the insulation and/or fire breaks in the exterior walls.

If you're any good at patching drywall, you can cut holes and/or channels in the walls/ceilings so you can place your cables in the walls/ceilings and then patch them once you're done with your cables. Obviously, this requires sanding and painting too.

Drilling through the floor isn't too difficult. The hard part is determining where to drill. The interior walls on your 3rd floor probably don't line up with the walls on your 2nd floor. If you're lucky, you may be able to measure it and figure out if there is a closet on the 3rd floor directly above a 2nd floor interior wall where you can fish a wire down from the closet.

Otherwise, you'll end up cutting some holes in your 2nd floor ceiling (so that you can reach your hand in the ceiling to pull wires) and/or near the bottom of your 3rd floor walls (so that you can drill a hole in the wall's sill plate).

I used to live in a 2-story house. To give you an example of what's possible... here's one thing I did in order to get network cable from my upstairs master closet (where the modem/router/switch was located) down to the family room:

On the 2nd floor, there was an interior wall between the hallway and a bedroom. It ran perpendicular to, and directly above the interior wall where my TV was in the downstairs family room. The floor was made of 2x12" floor joists on 16" centers with plywood decking (it was either 5/8" or 3/4" plywood). The walls were hollow drywall.

I cut a 4" wide, 18" tall piece of drywall out of the upstairs wall, right down by the floor, so I could get my drill in there to drill a hole through the 2x4 at the bottom of the wall (and the plywood decking). Directly above that spot, I climbed up in the attic and drilled a hole so I could fish the wire down from the attic.

Then, I went downstairs and cut a 4x4" hole in the ceiling, directly under the hole I had drilled in the floor upstairs. I also cut a hole at the top of the wall near that same spot. I also cut a hole directly below that one, in the spot where I wanted to install a keystone jack.

I used the hole in the top of the wall to drill a hole upwards, through the 2x4 at the top of the wall.

Then, I went upstairs and pushed the wire down through the hole in the bottom of the wall/floor. I went back downstairs and reached up through the hole in the ceiling and pushed the wire down through the hole in the top of the wall. Then, I was able to get down and reach into the hole near the bottom of the wall, and grab the wire.

Then, just terminate the wire with the new keystone jack, screw the wall plate to the wall box, and patch up all my holes (and texture and paint).

I have a brother who used to do drywall and finishing for a living. He taught me a few tricks. Also, at that particular house, I had left over paint to match all the places I needed to patch/texture/paint.

[IownFIVEechos]

Why not try this and stop the madness? Sounds like a lot of effort?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D4SOF3S/ref ... 1687041282

Good luck.

[werds]

Why not try this and stop the madness? Sounds like a lot of effort?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D4SOF3S/ref ... 1687041282

Good luck.

Hardwired>MoCa>Powerline

I use all 3 of the above and wireless as well in my house. Reliability and bandwith follows that order of precedence IMO. BUt I have used powerline for an extender before, although it worked OK, I upgraded it to a MoCa adapter as soon as I had a coax run to it, and if hard wiring wasnt a pain I would have done that too but am saving hard wiring all rooms for when we move to our next house.

[barnabas1969]

I completely agree with werds. Wired Ethernet is best. MoCA is 2nd. Powerline is a DISTANT 3rd. Wireless is LAST.

Trust me, the difference in cost between powerline and MoCA simply isn't worth your time/money unless you don't have a coax cable in the area where you want a network connection. Powerline works sometimes. It all depends on the electrical wiring in your building. MoCA works much better, and much more often than powerline. And, with MoCA... you can add a POE filter easily and cheaply... and it will significantly improve the performance of your MoCA network.

[IownFIVEechos]

I have looked at these for awhile, never saw them this low. Under $70 right now. May want to try this too?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008EQ ... d_i=507846

[mdavej]

DECA is even cheaper at $20 a pair. Like you and your Echoes, I have 5 at the moment. Same as MoCA except the must be isolated form cable TV signals. Not a problem for us HTPC/extender users. Works beautifully.

[IownFIVEechos]

DECA is even cheaper at $20 a pair. Like you and your Echoes, I have 5 at the moment. Same as MoCA except the must be isolated form cable TV signals. Not a problem for us HTPC/extender users. Works beautifully.

I am straight up gig Ethernet, but before I did the wiring I thought hard about these. What's cool about these is your cable modem/router is Actiontec (usually FIOS) you can tap right into it with just adding one of these on (this is what people have said at least).

[mdavej]

DECA works the same. It's identical to Moca except for the frequency of the ethernet. Same manufacturer, same chipset, just much lower price since satellite tv techs dump these on ebay to make a few extra bucks.

[werds]

DECA works the same. It's identical to Moca except for the frequency of the ethernet. Same manufacturer, same chipset, just much lower price since satellite tv techs dump these on ebay to make a few extra bucks.

What frequency band does it use?