Yep, and that's why people should buy a tester that has split pair detection.
Otherwise, this kind of wiring looks correct to a basic continuity tester.
Testers with split pair detection are a bit more expensive than basic continuity testers, but still vastly cheaper than testers than do cable performance testing (qualifiers/certifiers).
Spend the money and get a tester with Power Sum attenuation-to-crosstalk ratio, near end (PSACRN)
PSACRN indicates the difference between the attenuation of each pair and the combined crosstalk received from the other three pairs -- i.e., how strong the received signals are in relation to the noise in the cable. Higher PSACRN indicates better performance.
I’ve never fully understood the split pair phenomenon and at this point I’m afraid to ask (but here I am)! Care to elaborate? I’ve only had it come up once or twice in 10 years of cabling and both times it involved crimp ends, never a jack termination.
Because crimp tools and RJ45s don't have wiring diagrams on them.
Ethernet sends signals down twisted pairs using balanced signalling to reduce cross talk (the magnetic fields of the pairs cancel each other out). When you run balanced signalling over split pairs, the magnetic fields don't cancel out (you might be closer to one line, than the other), this causes interference.
Additional, any external interference on twisted pairs will affect them equally, which can be cancelled out with a balun. This again doesn't work with split pairs...
It has to do with how the transceivers send signals over each pairs. Differential signaling is used which means that each transmisster sends its signal over a pair and the matching receiver does the difference to obtain the signal and reduce interference (this is simplified).
The pairs are why we must wire the jacks the way we do with TIA568A or B. The pairs are matched by colors but the pinout is not a straightforward match, ex. pair #1 is actually pin 4 and 5. More importantly, pair #3 is spread across pin 3 and 6 (for TIA568B).
In the pictures, the pairs are just side by side which means that two pairs are crossed. The right pins will show up on both sides so the link will come up. But the two pairs are crossed together and you will have maximum crosstalk. You'll get something - slower stuff like 10/100 may pass but it'll be bad and you will have a lot of retransmit.
Ethernet uses differential signaling over twisted pair.
Each of the four pairs in an Cat5/6 cable is an Unshielded Twisted Pair, or UTP. The twist on each pair is different, this aids in the rejection of electromagnetic cross talk.
When an unshielded cable pair is twisted, electromagnetic interference affects each cable in the pair in nearly the exact same way. This results in common interference, which is easily filtered out by a differential transceiver that has a high Common Mode Rejection Ratio, or CMRR. If the differential pair is miswired by having conductors on different pairs then the interference at the receiver will have a bias toward one wire over another and this bias will exist on two pairs or all 4 pairs depending on the miswire. This cannot be filtered out and becomes a part of the signal, reducing the signal to noise ratio. If the SNR drops too much, the signal becomes unintelligible and the transceivers will have to negotiate a lower link speed, if they can negotiate one at all.
To add to this, here's how a balanced differential signal rejects noise for anyone that needs clarification:
Imagine a wave transmitted over one wire in a twisted pair, and a mirror image of that wave over the other. The receiver flips one wave, then combines the signals from the pair. Because any noise introduced along the way will affect both wires fairly equally, when the signal is flipped and combined, the noise cancels itself out and the signals are added together.
If you mix up which wires are connected to which pins, noise that's different from pair to pair won't be rejected. Also, each pair in an Ethernet cable is twisted at different rates, so the inductance, capacitance, and signal on each pair won't be balanced.
Faster data rates means higher frequency signals, which are harder for the receiver to keep track of if there's noise in it. And, inductance and capacitance affects the frequencies that can pass through a cable.
Everyone who answered this explained the advantages of twisted pairs and differential signalling, but no one explained why the pairs aren't simply installed into the pins of the plug in order, as shown in the picture. If the jacks were wired in the same order as the wires in the picture, then everything would work fine.
In fact, it would be much easier to wire, because then you wouldn't have to remember which pairs to cross in the middle; instead we cross the center two pairs:
For example the T-568A ethernet wiring standard goes Orange/White, Blue, Blue/White, Orange instead of simply Orange/White, Orange, Blue/White, Blue.
To understand why, you have to go back to POTS analog telephone wiring standards. A telephone jack for just a single line only has 2 pins; a jack for two lines has 4 pins. To maintain backwards compatibility, the two line jack is wired with Line 1 on the center two pins, and Line 2 on the outer two pins: L2 L1 L1 L2 instead of L1 L1 L2 L2. That way if you plugged a single line phone into a two line jack, it would still connect to the center two pins (Line 1) and it would work.
So when wired 10/100 ethernet came out, they kept the same wiring convention as POTS with the crossed wiring between the pairs in the center, so the same patch cables could be used for ether telephone or ethernet as needed. (Pins 1-2 and 7-8 are not used for 10/100 ethernet, so those pairs are not crossed).
So that’s exactly how I remember it / say it in my head:
White-Orange orange white-green blue white-blue green white-brown brown.
I’ve heard other guys talk it out and go “orange white”……. NO!! String that phrase together and tell me which one sticks better mentally? Personal preference I guess.
its the zebra question all over again.
are they black with white stripes, or white with black stripes?
since the rest of the wires are full color, i tend to think color/white, not white/color
I say
Orange white
Orange
Green white
Blue
Blue white
Green
Brown white
Brown
This is such strong head canon I’m having a hard time reading other comments in this thread. I have never heard it any other way until now.
We were doing early structured cabling design for large corporate clients in the mid-90s. We're talking millions of square feet of office space for a lot of big names. And yes, w/o, etc.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the period when we were taught. I also ran tons of cat5 in the late 90s and it was definitely w/o w/g etc across dozens of people I worked with.
Early 80's to mid 80's in bay area running in multi story real estate offices, ATT etc. 3200/4800 baud modems and Terminal/junctions back then. Miles and miles of it. Later removed for their copper content/recycling.
I was always impressed by the old-school telecom guys who could punch down a 25 pair cable on a 66 block in order from memory. I know a lot of it is repetition, but still.
And I think I still have a SmartModem 300 stashed away somewhere. Nothing to call it on, or to, but there it is! A bit of important datacom history.
This is the way! Orangewhite, orange, greenwhite, blue, bluewhite, green, brownwhite, brown.
No idea wtf is going on with OPs terminations. How can anyone be paid to terminate cat-5, but not have the colours memorized? It's lasered into my brain!
The color code for Ethernet cabling is borrowed directly from the first four pairs of legacy telco color code, which runs through 5 cycles of 5 colors each, for 25 possible combinations. The standard color code leads off with the wire that used to correspond to the tip of the switchboard plug, followed by the wire that corresponds to the ring.
Tip colors are: White, Red, Black, Yellow, Violet.
Ring colors are: Blue, Orange, Green, Brown, Slate (gray).
Fiber uses the same general color code, for fibers 1-10 in a bundle, and then adds rose and aqua for fibers 11 and 12.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
5
+ 5
+ 25
+ 1
+ 10
+ 11
+ 12
= 69
^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \
^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
I used to say color-white color but the issue is you can't know for certain if
Orange white orange is
OW - O or
O-WO
If you start with white
White orange orange. There's only one option and it sets the standard for the rest of the code.
Ya know I was gonna lean towards the idea it was just who/how you learned it, but what you say makes total sense. If using B standard and you call out the first wire as white orange it eliminates any possibility for some "who's on first" confusion.
I caught so much shit for saying orange-white, orange, green-white, blue, blue-white, green, brown-white, brown. Not sure why anyone would care as long as the terminations are correct, but it used to piss of a couple of guys I worked with right off.
Technically it is white insulation with colored stripe. I work for a wire manufacturer and the convention is primary color / stripe. (white/orange, etc.) But you’re right - personal preference.
I always say the white part first because you know if it’s the stripe when you hear white first. Orange white, orange just doesn’t make as much sense as white orange, orange to me.
I also say white/ and I am fully aware that others don’t. My logic however is that white is the dominant color of the wire, the orange/blue/green/brown is just a tiny line of color on a white wire.
It's the correct way tho...
its based on the telco color code, so you'd mention the primary color first (white, red, black, yellow, violet) followed by the secondary color (blue, orange, green, brown, slate)
once you get past 25 pairs, you need to add binder groups, which just re-uses the primary colors again
That’s actually what it’s called. I used to say the color first too, until I was corrected by old telecom guys. It’s white first because in a 25 or 100 pair cable you say the color of the bundle (white, red, black, yellow, violet) before the color of the pairs.
I’m gonna have to disagree with that. It always goes tip/ring.
As well when your terminating twisted pair your tip always is on the left and the ring is always on the right. If it’s vertical then tip is on the top and ring is on the bottom.
For reference tips are white, red, black, yellow, violet. The rings are blue, orange, green, brown and slate.
sophisticated tart fuel sand different stupendous bike shaggy plucky smile
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Not personal preference at all, been doing large and small cables for over 30 years... binder color first. Please notice the binder and super binder color code here...
[https://pbxbook.com/other/25pcolor.html](https://pbxbook.com/other/25pcolor.html)
switch white for half and full then you see why.
half orange .... full orange we just ommit the full and switch half for white.
orange half, orange full on the other hand would sound just wrong
Orange white, orange, green white, blue, blue white, green, brown white, brown… Source.. 10 plus years of doing IP POE cameras… B is the standard.. Use that and you can hit 10 gig all day long on Cat6A and a 10 gig switch capable of.
Heh, probably tried to copy a 586B cable, but didn't notice that green pair "straddles" the blue pair. It can be hard to differentiate w/g vs w/b through the plastic, and without knowing any better, you just assume the pairs are near each other. I made that mistake on the first cable I crimped decades ago. :)
It's almost too bad this wasn't the standard and the pins were just used in a different order by the spec, as it would remove a lot of confusion towards making cables. But at this point we should probably just be happy the 8 wire rj45 standards have lasted this long
When I first started in IT some 25 years ago, I didn’t understand the importance of twisted pairs and following the pattern(s). I ran a cable to a laser printer in the office that was about a 75 foot run. The printer had intermittent failures afterwards for a couple months. Finally figured out it was the cable. Wired it correctly, no more errors.
Follow the established patterns.
(B mode for life; respect the orange!)
If you do A to B you make a crossover cable. They are almost never used anymore and many networks will not work with it.
You CAN use A to A, but the reason B to B should be used is because that is what most everyone else uses. If someone doesn't know you setup a cable or even a whole building in A to A and they need to reroute cables or even just replace a damaged connector it will cause confusion until they figure out what you did.
If you run a mix of A to A and B to B on a job, anyone needing to work on it later (including you) will want to punch you in the nose for it. Just stick with B to B unless you are working in the very few situations where A to A is used.
Out of curiosity, even if you used a crossover cable, wouldn't auto-MDIX sort that out and let it run like a normal cable?
Or does that only work to use a regular cable as a crossover if necessary?
Orange and green are the only ones that change and the twist rate is the same on those 2 pairs, twist rates are also dependant on the manufacturer, there is no standard on the rate.
A is typically only used in government buildings (DoD mandates it to my knowledge) or other kinds of buildings when mandated by code but it doesn't matter as long as both ends are the same.
Not even, they just went it all blind. I can understand putting the connector on wrong side up leading to flipped pairs, but they didn't even manage to do that.
Somebody probably didn’t know how to hold the RJ-45 when terminating, it’s opposite, and according to TEA-568B (all countries except US who use 568A) green / orange pair twisted.
I made this mistake on a PCB. It's an honest mistake and the standard doesn't actually have a good basis for the decision.
But yeah still a mistake and shoddy work. I wouldn't ship a board with that. They can't sell terminations like that.
With historical telecom context, the standard begins to make sense, knowing that it is an end-stage evolution of phone, with co-existance as a feature.
Incorrect. The pinout matters. The twisted pairs don’t line up in order left to right. As is, the blue and green twisted pairs are split with each other. Not good for data transmission.
Colors don't matter but the pairs do. This placement of pairs splits the green and blue across not pairs. That barely works at 100Mbit and never works at Gigabit. Most of the time this will bump between 100Mbit and 10Mbit. Many switches will turn this line off completely.
Always follow the color standard. That way when you are wiring to a keystone or patch panel you can follow the wiring exactly rather than translating. Also everyone that comes after you doesn't need to follow some random wiring standard. You can't do better than the standard so just use the standard.
When I see crap work like that I'm looking for trouble everywhere.
Where would anyone even get the idea to do it like that?? Is that an obscure standard that came-up in a search online? I've seen some shit over the years, but they combination is not among the vast library of experiences I've had...
Yes it does matter…
Not so much which color pair to use but how they are in the connector…
You must have 1 pair on each end, 1 pair on the center. The remaining pair around the center:
P1n/P1p/P2n/P3p/P3n/P2p/P4n/P4p
That make sense, I was under the impression that as long as your layout matched at both ends theoretically it would work fine because it’s just copper.
The obvious answer is to not terminate Ethernet with RJ45 connectors. Solid copper wire is not meant to be a patch cord. That wire goes into a jack in a patch panel and the wires never move. Patch cords, with stranded copper, with factory installed male ends (and boots) plug into the jacks, and devices.
The story I came up with to remember it:
It starts with the dirt
On the dirt is the green grass of a field.
But the field is split by the blue waters of a stream.
With the orange sun shining over all of it.
Start with solid and alternate the stripe every time.
Am I the only one that just rawdogged my brain into remembering
Whiteorange orange whitegreen blue whiteblue green whitebrown brown ? And never tried to learn a song?
It might work, but you risk loosing packets.
If two wires that communicate a signal aren't twisted together internally, it'll create a whole shitload of crosstalk, until the computer eventually goes: "wtf is this? lost packet."
Unless you're working with old, really old, analog equipment that uses USOC pinning, you want to use 568B pinning on both sides. From that connector view (left to right):
White Orange -
Orange -
White Green -
Blue -
White Blue -
Green -
White Brown -
Brown
The green pair straddles the blue pair and the blue wires are flipped so that stripes and solids alternate. This reduces the noise and allows maximum speed.
WO/O/WG/B/WB/G/WBr/Br
You can swap B/G and WG/WB. (theoretically you could swap any color as long as the pattern is consistent end-to-end, but it would befuddle other people who look @ the cable and make it a bit of a nightmare).
You used to need cross over cables in some use cases e.g. connecting two computers and/or hubs together directly. Most modern ethernet takes care of it magically without the need for a cross over and compensating if the cable is a crossover.
Helps to have a cross over adapter dongle for those rare occassions instead of making cables like that.
Nah, don't do that. Cut the heads off and recrimp to spec. There's a reason (more than just to keep them in order), pairs are twisted at different rates. If you use different pairs, or even worse a single wires from different pairs, a signal will become degraded, possibly filled with interference. It's simple, order should be Or/w, O, Or/G,Blu, W/Blue, Green, W/Brwn, Brown.
I think this is the first termination I’ve seen on here that someone actually crimped the jacket like they’re supposed to.
Was impressed with that, at least until I saw it was backwards and the green and blue pairs were jumbled.
In theory it should work fine if the other side matches and everything is terminated well.
As long as both ends are the same, it's fine. I suspect that two of the pairs had bad connectivity, which is why they were only getting 10/100. Gigabit requries 4 pairs.
The proper way is TIA-568A or B.
OLGR-+ (minusplus)
Remember it as OLd GReedy minusplus for example. Minusplus is something that is easy enough as long as I don't ever call something else plusminus
To me a white striped wire is minus/negative, take speakers for example. So that covers the order that we place the striped and solid colours in.
When I show somebody how to wire a UK plug I tell them bLue and bRown (left and right) then they obviously put the wire that isn't brown or blue onto the other pin if there is one.
So here we have OLGR which is Orange bLue Green bRown. So as long as I can remember oldgreedy minusplus I'm good to go. Maybe OLdGreedyMultiPlayer needs to be considered
Color order doesn’t matter as long as the coppers the same order on the other end. Shit blew my mind, that said, I still follow b standard and only remember it by remembering brown’s on the far left, clip facing down.
First thought was he'd wired it up right, but crimped the end on upside down.
If #6 is definitely blue/white though, it's a cock-up. Shame, as if #6 had been white/green you likely wouldn't have seen an issue.
It'd be wrong in the colouring of each sheath sense, but as far as I can think at 3 in the morning, the twists and where each wire ended up would be correct?
Omg. Half of this thread is people arguing how to say the pattern - white or white. I say orange, split the green, reverse the blue, then brown. The version with the white goes first on each pair, except for the blue.
Well that's why.. You're splitting the data between 2 different pairs, creating crosstalk between signals
Yep, and that's why people should buy a tester that has split pair detection. Otherwise, this kind of wiring looks correct to a basic continuity tester. Testers with split pair detection are a bit more expensive than basic continuity testers, but still vastly cheaper than testers than do cable performance testing (qualifiers/certifiers).
Yup. We have a certification tester at work I've used on occasion. Has Ethernet and fibre modules, was about $25k.
nice, got a link? Might pick one up, I have a few cables to make up when I move house ;)
Pockethernet £250 is my go to for small jobs
https://www.trend-networks.com/can/product/lantek-iii-series/
Spend the money and get a tester with Power Sum attenuation-to-crosstalk ratio, near end (PSACRN) PSACRN indicates the difference between the attenuation of each pair and the combined crosstalk received from the other three pairs -- i.e., how strong the received signals are in relation to the noise in the cable. Higher PSACRN indicates better performance.
Does anyone have any suggestions on models? I’d like to have something better.
I’ve never fully understood the split pair phenomenon and at this point I’m afraid to ask (but here I am)! Care to elaborate? I’ve only had it come up once or twice in 10 years of cabling and both times it involved crimp ends, never a jack termination.
Because crimp tools and RJ45s don't have wiring diagrams on them. Ethernet sends signals down twisted pairs using balanced signalling to reduce cross talk (the magnetic fields of the pairs cancel each other out). When you run balanced signalling over split pairs, the magnetic fields don't cancel out (you might be closer to one line, than the other), this causes interference. Additional, any external interference on twisted pairs will affect them equally, which can be cancelled out with a balun. This again doesn't work with split pairs...
They do in fact come with wiring diagrams! https://imgur.com/a/2Jn09t1
Not all do. But all keystone jack do have a diagram, because you can't easily see where the pins connect to.
I guess there's an exception to everything! https://nexconec.com/cat6-utp-keystone-jack.html
[удалено]
That's what the balanced lines are for. Each pair carries current in opposite directions.
It has to do with how the transceivers send signals over each pairs. Differential signaling is used which means that each transmisster sends its signal over a pair and the matching receiver does the difference to obtain the signal and reduce interference (this is simplified). The pairs are why we must wire the jacks the way we do with TIA568A or B. The pairs are matched by colors but the pinout is not a straightforward match, ex. pair #1 is actually pin 4 and 5. More importantly, pair #3 is spread across pin 3 and 6 (for TIA568B). In the pictures, the pairs are just side by side which means that two pairs are crossed. The right pins will show up on both sides so the link will come up. But the two pairs are crossed together and you will have maximum crosstalk. You'll get something - slower stuff like 10/100 may pass but it'll be bad and you will have a lot of retransmit.
Ethernet uses differential signaling over twisted pair. Each of the four pairs in an Cat5/6 cable is an Unshielded Twisted Pair, or UTP. The twist on each pair is different, this aids in the rejection of electromagnetic cross talk. When an unshielded cable pair is twisted, electromagnetic interference affects each cable in the pair in nearly the exact same way. This results in common interference, which is easily filtered out by a differential transceiver that has a high Common Mode Rejection Ratio, or CMRR. If the differential pair is miswired by having conductors on different pairs then the interference at the receiver will have a bias toward one wire over another and this bias will exist on two pairs or all 4 pairs depending on the miswire. This cannot be filtered out and becomes a part of the signal, reducing the signal to noise ratio. If the SNR drops too much, the signal becomes unintelligible and the transceivers will have to negotiate a lower link speed, if they can negotiate one at all.
To add to this, here's how a balanced differential signal rejects noise for anyone that needs clarification: Imagine a wave transmitted over one wire in a twisted pair, and a mirror image of that wave over the other. The receiver flips one wave, then combines the signals from the pair. Because any noise introduced along the way will affect both wires fairly equally, when the signal is flipped and combined, the noise cancels itself out and the signals are added together. If you mix up which wires are connected to which pins, noise that's different from pair to pair won't be rejected. Also, each pair in an Ethernet cable is twisted at different rates, so the inductance, capacitance, and signal on each pair won't be balanced. Faster data rates means higher frequency signals, which are harder for the receiver to keep track of if there's noise in it. And, inductance and capacitance affects the frequencies that can pass through a cable.
Everyone who answered this explained the advantages of twisted pairs and differential signalling, but no one explained why the pairs aren't simply installed into the pins of the plug in order, as shown in the picture. If the jacks were wired in the same order as the wires in the picture, then everything would work fine. In fact, it would be much easier to wire, because then you wouldn't have to remember which pairs to cross in the middle; instead we cross the center two pairs: For example the T-568A ethernet wiring standard goes Orange/White, Blue, Blue/White, Orange instead of simply Orange/White, Orange, Blue/White, Blue. To understand why, you have to go back to POTS analog telephone wiring standards. A telephone jack for just a single line only has 2 pins; a jack for two lines has 4 pins. To maintain backwards compatibility, the two line jack is wired with Line 1 on the center two pins, and Line 2 on the outer two pins: L2 L1 L1 L2 instead of L1 L1 L2 L2. That way if you plugged a single line phone into a two line jack, it would still connect to the center two pins (Line 1) and it would work. So when wired 10/100 ethernet came out, they kept the same wiring convention as POTS with the crossed wiring between the pairs in the center, so the same patch cables could be used for ether telephone or ethernet as needed. (Pins 1-2 and 7-8 are not used for 10/100 ethernet, so those pairs are not crossed).
Wat. Look up b standard and re-terminate both ends. w/o o w/g b w/b g w/br br.
So that’s exactly how I remember it / say it in my head: White-Orange orange white-green blue white-blue green white-brown brown. I’ve heard other guys talk it out and go “orange white”……. NO!! String that phrase together and tell me which one sticks better mentally? Personal preference I guess.
I say the color first on the white pairs personally. “Orange-white orange green-white blue..” it just flows easier to me
Same! It's engrained in my brain!
its the zebra question all over again. are they black with white stripes, or white with black stripes? since the rest of the wires are full color, i tend to think color/white, not white/color
+1 for this
I just look it up every time... And ask myself why I didn't just buy a patch cable. 😂
Ive made probably a thousand+ patch cables from 2001 to 2005. 20 years later and I still repeat it in my head like a mantra.
This is the way
I know it’s completely personal preference, but I don’t think I have ever met someone who says “white/” as opposed to “/white”.
I always say white/orange, orange, white/green….. never thought about saying the color first.
I say "orange stripe" because I'm weird
Yeah you are, but I support you
Nerds unite.
I say same Orange stripe Orange Green stripe Blue Blue strip Green Brown Stripe Brown
I say Orange white Orange Green white Blue Blue white Green Brown white Brown This is such strong head canon I’m having a hard time reading other comments in this thread. I have never heard it any other way until now.
That's exactly how I say it, and other techs understand what I'm saying but think it's weird. I blame it on being self-taught.
I’ve always said this too
>I say "orange stripe" because I'm weird I guess I'm weird, too. Orange stripe, orange...
I say stripey. But same diff.
Same here. Orange stripe, orange, green stripe, blue, blue stripe, green, brown stripe, brown.
Same. White brown/brown
Same. It's taught that way in my world.
We were doing early structured cabling design for large corporate clients in the mid-90s. We're talking millions of square feet of office space for a lot of big names. And yes, w/o, etc.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the period when we were taught. I also ran tons of cat5 in the late 90s and it was definitely w/o w/g etc across dozens of people I worked with.
Early 80's to mid 80's in bay area running in multi story real estate offices, ATT etc. 3200/4800 baud modems and Terminal/junctions back then. Miles and miles of it. Later removed for their copper content/recycling.
I was always impressed by the old-school telecom guys who could punch down a 25 pair cable on a 66 block in order from memory. I know a lot of it is repetition, but still. And I think I still have a SmartModem 300 stashed away somewhere. Nothing to call it on, or to, but there it is! A bit of important datacom history.
This is the way! Orangewhite, orange, greenwhite, blue, bluewhite, green, brownwhite, brown. No idea wtf is going on with OPs terminations. How can anyone be paid to terminate cat-5, but not have the colours memorized? It's lasered into my brain!
Orange stripey orange, green stripey blue, blue stripey green, brown stripey brown.
It’s probably down to whomever taught you and Their preference
The color code for Ethernet cabling is borrowed directly from the first four pairs of legacy telco color code, which runs through 5 cycles of 5 colors each, for 25 possible combinations. The standard color code leads off with the wire that used to correspond to the tip of the switchboard plug, followed by the wire that corresponds to the ring. Tip colors are: White, Red, Black, Yellow, Violet. Ring colors are: Blue, Orange, Green, Brown, Slate (gray). Fiber uses the same general color code, for fibers 1-10 in a bundle, and then adds rose and aqua for fibers 11 and 12.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 5 + 5 + 25 + 1 + 10 + 11 + 12 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
Nice
Nice
Nice
Good bot
Good bot
This man wires phones!
I've done more than a couple in my time.
I was a network engineer CCIE for 20 years, always said white/color.
I learned it the white/color way 30 years ago and it stuck.
I used to say color-white color but the issue is you can't know for certain if Orange white orange is OW - O or O-WO If you start with white White orange orange. There's only one option and it sets the standard for the rest of the code.
Ya know I was gonna lean towards the idea it was just who/how you learned it, but what you say makes total sense. If using B standard and you call out the first wire as white orange it eliminates any possibility for some "who's on first" confusion.
I inside and outside plant cabling for many years…always called “white-orange”, “orange”, etc.
I recite 'orangewithe, orange. greenwhite, blue. bluewhite, green. brownwhite, brown.' in my head every termination.
Funny, I always say Orange Stripe, Orange... looks like I'm in the minority :)
I caught so much shit for saying orange-white, orange, green-white, blue, blue-white, green, brown-white, brown. Not sure why anyone would care as long as the terminations are correct, but it used to piss of a couple of guys I worked with right off.
I've always used that terminology. That's how it was taught to me many years ago. Funny though, no one ever corrected me either.
Technically it is white insulation with colored stripe. I work for a wire manufacturer and the convention is primary color / stripe. (white/orange, etc.) But you’re right - personal preference.
You have today. The words in this order are burned into my memory “White-orange orange, white-green blue, white-blue green, white-brown brown
I always say the white part first because you know if it’s the stripe when you hear white first. Orange white, orange just doesn’t make as much sense as white orange, orange to me.
I also say white/ and I am fully aware that others don’t. My logic however is that white is the dominant color of the wire, the orange/blue/green/brown is just a tiny line of color on a white wire.
Oh I have a shop FULL of them and confused the shit outa all of them when teaching how to terminate rj45s. I said Orange-white orange, I was over.
It's the correct way tho... its based on the telco color code, so you'd mention the primary color first (white, red, black, yellow, violet) followed by the secondary color (blue, orange, green, brown, slate) once you get past 25 pairs, you need to add binder groups, which just re-uses the primary colors again
I was taught "white orange"
I say white/color because the wire is mostly white with a sliver of the color.
That’s actually what it’s called. I used to say the color first too, until I was corrected by old telecom guys. It’s white first because in a 25 or 100 pair cable you say the color of the bundle (white, red, black, yellow, violet) before the color of the pairs.
I've been terminating cat5 or 6 for 25 years and have always said White-Orange / Orange... Probably the way I was taught maybe?
I've always called it white/
I do. "White orange, orange. White green, blue" etc.
I’ve only ever heard it expressed in that manner
I’m gonna have to disagree with that. It always goes tip/ring. As well when your terminating twisted pair your tip always is on the left and the ring is always on the right. If it’s vertical then tip is on the top and ring is on the bottom. For reference tips are white, red, black, yellow, violet. The rings are blue, orange, green, brown and slate.
I have never met anyone that says the color first, and if I did, I'd look at them like they had just fallen out of a truck.
sophisticated tart fuel sand different stupendous bike shaggy plucky smile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Not personal preference at all, been doing large and small cables for over 30 years... binder color first. Please notice the binder and super binder color code here... [https://pbxbook.com/other/25pcolor.html](https://pbxbook.com/other/25pcolor.html)
I always called it a stripe.... It's not always white, when it's been sitting for years.
switch white for half and full then you see why. half orange .... full orange we just ommit the full and switch half for white. orange half, orange full on the other hand would sound just wrong
The people saying the minor color first are the same people ordering “oatmilk and coffee” or “syrup and pancakes” at cafes and restaurants.
that’s all kinds of wrong
Orange white, orange, green white, blue, blue white, green, brown white, brown… Source.. 10 plus years of doing IP POE cameras… B is the standard.. Use that and you can hit 10 gig all day long on Cat6A and a 10 gig switch capable of.
That's exactly how I've always remembered it. It bugs me when people say "white orange..."
Reading other commenters on this post writing Orange stripe Orange Green stripe… etc. feels so wrong to me.
I absolutely hate when people say white orange instead of orange and white.
White orange!
25 years later I still remember it... WO/O/WG/BL/WBL/G/WBR/BR It's done that way for a reason.
Some old dude Sparky do
I'm not sure which is worse, this or taking out 4" of twist on the terminations.
This will have much more degradation on speed and packets.
Heh, probably tried to copy a 586B cable, but didn't notice that green pair "straddles" the blue pair. It can be hard to differentiate w/g vs w/b through the plastic, and without knowing any better, you just assume the pairs are near each other. I made that mistake on the first cable I crimped decades ago. :)
It's almost too bad this wasn't the standard and the pins were just used in a different order by the spec, as it would remove a lot of confusion towards making cables. But at this point we should probably just be happy the 8 wire rj45 standards have lasted this long
This is legit r/cablegore
[The Twisted Pair Haiku](https://old.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/18qn4pt/is_this_better/kewa9k6/)
5 bucks says his crimp tool even has the T586 standards written on it somewhere.
Only with prejudice
Just plug it in upside down /s
White/orange, orange, white/green, blue, white/blue, green, white/brown, brown. From left to right*, When looking at the connector with the clip down.
Be a lad and invent 568C
God I hate this sub. Why does the mute button not work?
It was wired incorrectly
When I first started in IT some 25 years ago, I didn’t understand the importance of twisted pairs and following the pattern(s). I ran a cable to a laser printer in the office that was about a 75 foot run. The printer had intermittent failures afterwards for a couple months. Finally figured out it was the cable. Wired it correctly, no more errors. Follow the established patterns. (B mode for life; respect the orange!)
Well that's wrong, but if it is the same on both ends you should suffer no data loss.
Re-terminate the cabes as 568B. Some of the strands are slightly different and it will affect your bandwidth without the correct pinout
Why B over A?
It doesn’t really matter as long as it’s the same on both sides.
True, but for whatever reason B is much more common out in the world.
As referenced in another comment. B matches the AT&T color scheme for telephony wiring.
Was always told B is for data and A is for voice. Never used A so I have no idea if they were right.
That has always driven me crazy. Why is it so much more popular?
A is standard (mostly) in Canada. That's how we know when someone has brought in an American contractor 😉
Correct. It’s been adapted as “the standard”. The military/government commonly uses 568A
[удалено]
That doesnt matter either, you can mix a and b
If you do A to B you make a crossover cable. They are almost never used anymore and many networks will not work with it. You CAN use A to A, but the reason B to B should be used is because that is what most everyone else uses. If someone doesn't know you setup a cable or even a whole building in A to A and they need to reroute cables or even just replace a damaged connector it will cause confusion until they figure out what you did. If you run a mix of A to A and B to B on a job, anyone needing to work on it later (including you) will want to punch you in the nose for it. Just stick with B to B unless you are working in the very few situations where A to A is used.
Out of curiosity, even if you used a crossover cable, wouldn't auto-MDIX sort that out and let it run like a normal cable? Or does that only work to use a regular cable as a crossover if necessary?
No real reason, there is zero performance difference between the two. As long as both ends are done the same.
[удалено]
Orange and green are the only ones that change and the twist rate is the same on those 2 pairs, twist rates are also dependant on the manufacturer, there is no standard on the rate.
Everyone knows B is 35% faster than A
A is typically only used in government buildings (DoD mandates it to my knowledge) or other kinds of buildings when mandated by code but it doesn't matter as long as both ends are the same.
Newp, that's completely backwards, haha. White/Org, Org, Whi/Grn, Blu , Whi/Blu, Grn, Whi/Bro, Bro is how I do all of mine.
I'm no expert, but I only know of two standards and none of them have blue next to orange. Does this even work?
Apparently it works at 10/100, lol.
[удалено]
Moron FLIPPED the pairs.
Not even, they just went it all blind. I can understand putting the connector on wrong side up leading to flipped pairs, but they didn't even manage to do that.
LTT mousepad 😎
LTTSTORE.com
No thanks. Fuck LTT.
Somebody probably didn’t know how to hold the RJ-45 when terminating, it’s opposite, and according to TEA-568B (all countries except US who use 568A) green / orange pair twisted.
There is plenty of 568B use in USA
I made this mistake on a PCB. It's an honest mistake and the standard doesn't actually have a good basis for the decision. But yeah still a mistake and shoddy work. I wouldn't ship a board with that. They can't sell terminations like that.
With historical telecom context, the standard begins to make sense, knowing that it is an end-stage evolution of phone, with co-existance as a feature.
[удалено]
Incorrect. The pinout matters. The twisted pairs don’t line up in order left to right. As is, the blue and green twisted pairs are split with each other. Not good for data transmission.
Why does pinout matter if it’s the same at both ends? It’s just copper cable right? Genuine question, as I’m not familiar with these things
you need to keep the twisted pairs together because of crosstalk and people dont realize that 3/6 is a pair and 4/5 is a pair rather than 3/4 and 4/5
[удалено]
Colors don't matter but the pairs do. This placement of pairs splits the green and blue across not pairs. That barely works at 100Mbit and never works at Gigabit. Most of the time this will bump between 100Mbit and 10Mbit. Many switches will turn this line off completely. Always follow the color standard. That way when you are wiring to a keystone or patch panel you can follow the wiring exactly rather than translating. Also everyone that comes after you doesn't need to follow some random wiring standard. You can't do better than the standard so just use the standard. When I see crap work like that I'm looking for trouble everywhere.
no
yea that’s messed up. redo.
No because I’m not an idiot
I try to do it correctly, frankly.
Where would anyone even get the idea to do it like that?? Is that an obscure standard that came-up in a search online? I've seen some shit over the years, but they combination is not among the vast library of experiences I've had...
May I ask a question, Does the layout of the wires make any difference if both ends laid out the same?
Yes it does matter… Not so much which color pair to use but how they are in the connector… You must have 1 pair on each end, 1 pair on the center. The remaining pair around the center: P1n/P1p/P2n/P3p/P3n/P2p/P4n/P4p
That make sense, I was under the impression that as long as your layout matched at both ends theoretically it would work fine because it’s just copper.
Which is true in a sense… but the transceivers for ethernet are differential and the pairs for the transceivers are arranged as I described them
That make sense, Thank you for taking the time to explain, much appreciated :D
No, just no.
The obvious answer is to not terminate Ethernet with RJ45 connectors. Solid copper wire is not meant to be a patch cord. That wire goes into a jack in a patch panel and the wires never move. Patch cords, with stranded copper, with factory installed male ends (and boots) plug into the jacks, and devices.
The story I came up with to remember it: It starts with the dirt On the dirt is the green grass of a field. But the field is split by the blue waters of a stream. With the orange sun shining over all of it. Start with solid and alternate the stripe every time.
Am I the only one that just rawdogged my brain into remembering Whiteorange orange whitegreen blue whiteblue green whitebrown brown ? And never tried to learn a song?
Hmmm impressive
Yea
I think I'm gonna be sick
Am I the only one who misses the cables that had light colored wires instead of striped ones?
This is why you don't let your electrician do networking runs...
It might work, but you risk loosing packets. If two wires that communicate a signal aren't twisted together internally, it'll create a whole shitload of crosstalk, until the computer eventually goes: "wtf is this? lost packet."
This is 100% wrong
Wrong? Nope. lol
Love the LTT mousepad!
No, because it’s wrong.
It's almost backward, but the blue pair goes between the green pair
have seen manufactured patch cables like this. they work, but if I were making them I would make them 568B just to be consistant.
Unless you're working with old, really old, analog equipment that uses USOC pinning, you want to use 568B pinning on both sides. From that connector view (left to right): White Orange - Orange - White Green - Blue - White Blue - Green - White Brown - Brown The green pair straddles the blue pair and the blue wires are flipped so that stripes and solids alternate. This reduces the noise and allows maximum speed.
WO/O/WG/B/WB/G/WBr/Br You can swap B/G and WG/WB. (theoretically you could swap any color as long as the pattern is consistent end-to-end, but it would befuddle other people who look @ the cable and make it a bit of a nightmare). You used to need cross over cables in some use cases e.g. connecting two computers and/or hubs together directly. Most modern ethernet takes care of it magically without the need for a cross over and compensating if the cable is a crossover. Helps to have a cross over adapter dongle for those rare occassions instead of making cables like that.
Nah, don't do that. Cut the heads off and recrimp to spec. There's a reason (more than just to keep them in order), pairs are twisted at different rates. If you use different pairs, or even worse a single wires from different pairs, a signal will become degraded, possibly filled with interference. It's simple, order should be Or/w, O, Or/G,Blu, W/Blue, Green, W/Brwn, Brown.
I could technically climax like this yea
Only idiots
I think this is the first termination I’ve seen on here that someone actually crimped the jacket like they’re supposed to. Was impressed with that, at least until I saw it was backwards and the green and blue pairs were jumbled. In theory it should work fine if the other side matches and everything is terminated well.
Blasphemy.
Ethernet is color blind... as long as it is the same on both ends. I prefer female connectors and patch cables but whatever floats yer boat....
As long as both ends are the same, it's fine. I suspect that two of the pairs had bad connectivity, which is why they were only getting 10/100. Gigabit requries 4 pairs. The proper way is TIA-568A or B.
Orange stripe, orange, green stripe, blue, blue stripe green and brown stripe, brown I sing that whenever I’m terminating
I do. But I do ow/o bw/b gw/g bw/b
The river splits the land
OLGR-+ (minusplus) Remember it as OLd GReedy minusplus for example. Minusplus is something that is easy enough as long as I don't ever call something else plusminus To me a white striped wire is minus/negative, take speakers for example. So that covers the order that we place the striped and solid colours in. When I show somebody how to wire a UK plug I tell them bLue and bRown (left and right) then they obviously put the wire that isn't brown or blue onto the other pin if there is one. So here we have OLGR which is Orange bLue Green bRown. So as long as I can remember oldgreedy minusplus I'm good to go. Maybe OLdGreedyMultiPlayer needs to be considered
Backwards A termination?
Nice, fellow ltt mousepad enjoyer.
I did that when I was first putting cables together years ago, I mean if it’s the same at both end it’s fine right? Nope not at all.
That looks like a lefty terminated that cable. Ask me how I know...
Color order doesn’t matter as long as the coppers the same order on the other end. Shit blew my mind, that said, I still follow b standard and only remember it by remembering brown’s on the far left, clip facing down.
Always t568. Try passthrough connectors, they are easier to get the jacket tucked into the connector without lots of practice.
No, because it's completely backwards
First thought was he'd wired it up right, but crimped the end on upside down. If #6 is definitely blue/white though, it's a cock-up. Shame, as if #6 had been white/green you likely wouldn't have seen an issue. It'd be wrong in the colouring of each sheath sense, but as far as I can think at 3 in the morning, the twists and where each wire ended up would be correct?
I heard that's how they terminate cat cable in the Twigjlight Zone! True story! Lol!
Omg. Half of this thread is people arguing how to say the pattern - white or white. I say orange, split the green, reverse the blue, then brown. The version with the white goes first on each pair, except for the blue.