I did suggest testing with a known good cable first. There's no way for you to tell which end to re-terminate, unless you just want to preemptively do both.Yes, it directly terminates in an RJ-45 plug. It seems everyone is telling me to re-terminate
Ubiquiti AP to switch connection stuck at 100Mb
- Thread starter teleos
- Start date
I also filed down a clip on the Aruba I have, the hole to unlatch was right next to the wall which makes it almost impossible to get to it. It now still sort of latches but twist it and you can force it over the shaved down bump.
Good tip to just do it on all of them, no one is going to pull them off the ceiling anyway.
Good tip to just do it on all of them, no one is going to pull them off the ceiling anyway.
I think we all figure that testing that way won't be easy to do since it seems to be intermittent, and presumably the AP needs to be in the position it's in to provide connectivity even if it's not optimal. If it changes rapidly enough then testing with it plugged directly into the switch would be fine.
I just now noticed when I looked back that OP mentioned there was another AP having the same issue. Sounds like they may have had a bad contractor running cabling, or the in-house tech wasn't very good at it. Could be that a lot of the wired ports in the building aren't doing well. Even if they link at 1G, they might not actually be getting that level of throughput. (Assuming it is all Cat5e.)
I have a black injector from them that negotiates at 1000, so color isn't the best indicator.
Edit: just saw the later posts talking about color not being the best indicator.
If you have a cable that's long enough, or can buy a good one for a price you like, I'd suggest running it as a test outside the walls to both ends, to see if it negotiates and stays at gigabit. This works best as a test if you can leave it for a day or so, which is often awkward or unfeasible. If you still get negotiation issues, then it's probably a port issue. If it works, then reterminating the in-wall cabling is normally the next step.
That takes tools that you probably won't already have, and knowledge you probably won't have, either. You can buy the tools and probably find instructions on Youtube, but the investment in doing that for the first time is substantial. It is, however, super easy afterward, and a good skill to have. It's so easy that most folks who've done it already will routinely recommend it as a solution, forgetting how intimidating it is the first time.
If THAT doesn't work, but an external cable does work, then you're probably going to have to re-run the wire with something new. That's a giant PITA, and you usually have to buy a spool of wire, which is a lot more expensive than it used to be. (massive boxes of Cat 5e wire used to be cheap.) But you should at least have your termination tools already, so that part will be easy.
But, damn, running in-wall wires sucks.
If you feel well-heeled or don't want to deal with any of that, remember you can hire pros for troubleshooting and wire replacement. This will be very expensive in comparison, but the amount of hassle avoided can be well worth it. Getting all sweaty from hot crawlspaces, and then itching for days afterward from all the fiberglass, is a whole lot of No Fun. Remember your mask discipline, you don't want fiberglass in your lungs.
edit: if you do end up having a pro run your cable(s), consider running fiber as well. You'd probably want single-mode fiber: it's more advanced, and requires better optics to drive, but the price difference on the optics isn't large anymore. (it used to be gigantic.) You can get wall plates with both fiber and ethernet jacks, so you can just light up the fiber, someday when you're ready, by plugging in the right cables. (use LC terminations, they're kind of the default.) The cost delta should be relatively small.... the really expensive part is the bodies doing the pull. The cost of the fiber and the extra terminations should add only modestly to the price.
That takes tools that you probably won't already have, and knowledge you probably won't have, either. You can buy the tools and probably find instructions on Youtube, but the investment in doing that for the first time is substantial. It is, however, super easy afterward, and a good skill to have. It's so easy that most folks who've done it already will routinely recommend it as a solution, forgetting how intimidating it is the first time.
If THAT doesn't work, but an external cable does work, then you're probably going to have to re-run the wire with something new. That's a giant PITA, and you usually have to buy a spool of wire, which is a lot more expensive than it used to be. (massive boxes of Cat 5e wire used to be cheap.) But you should at least have your termination tools already, so that part will be easy.
But, damn, running in-wall wires sucks.
If you feel well-heeled or don't want to deal with any of that, remember you can hire pros for troubleshooting and wire replacement. This will be very expensive in comparison, but the amount of hassle avoided can be well worth it. Getting all sweaty from hot crawlspaces, and then itching for days afterward from all the fiberglass, is a whole lot of No Fun. Remember your mask discipline, you don't want fiberglass in your lungs.
edit: if you do end up having a pro run your cable(s), consider running fiber as well. You'd probably want single-mode fiber: it's more advanced, and requires better optics to drive, but the price difference on the optics isn't large anymore. (it used to be gigantic.) You can get wall plates with both fiber and ethernet jacks, so you can just light up the fiber, someday when you're ready, by plugging in the right cables. (use LC terminations, they're kind of the default.) The cost delta should be relatively small.... the really expensive part is the bodies doing the pull. The cost of the fiber and the extra terminations should add only modestly to the price.
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A full kit with the tools for cutting, stripping, crimping, punchdown and testing is $25 on Amazon and includes a few connectors (though I don't know what CAT rating and you'll need more for learning). And the tools have features even the more expensive ones I've used didn't have. It takes a little bit of time to learn but it's a good skill to have if there's a chance of needing it in the future. Just grab extra connectors and something like a 10 foot cable or two, cut off the ends and re-terminate and test, and do that a few times to get comfortable with it before cutting the one in the wall as you may not have much extra to work with there.
My MSP company charged $120 for a single cable drop and termination on both ends, up to like 100 feet and including 5e cable and connectors/faceplates/jacks, as long as it didn't require an excessive amount of work or time but that included fishing over a ceiling, down a wall without obstructions or through conduit or whatever. The contractor doing the work charged us a lot less of course, and it might be cheaper if someone went directly to a telephone service installer which is the type of small company that would be willing to do one or two drops (and is what we used even for hundreds).
I suspect those are going to be seriously lousy tools. Mine cost me about $100, and they're twenty years old. The biggest cost was the main trimmer and crimper ($75), but just the insulation stripper was like $25 all by itself. I suspect decent modern versions would be at least $150, although I admittedly have not done much research.
For someone just doing occasional repairs like this, possibly ONLY ever needing them this one time, they'll be fine, and would probably last 20 years as well. He's more likely to LOSE them over the years than anything else. Of course someone doing 10+ cables a day every day as a primary part of their job needs better-constructed and long-lasting tools, and even for someone just doing a few of them per week it's probably worth having a decent set that might not have any quirks to deal with. It comes down to whether there's going to be a return on investment. Spending $200 (termination tools and tester) for something that may only need to be done 5 times EVER is ridiculous if it can be done just as well for $25. I have a cable tester that's 20+ years old that probably cost $10, has broken plastic, and still works fine.
This kind of fits into my argument in another thread that people on this site often make recommendations that are WAY overboard for the needs of the person asking a question, insisting that everyone needs to have a professional-grade or power-user setup that costs far more when they would be perfectly served by a lower-cost solution and will never make use of anything provided by the higher-cost setup, which provides functionality far in excess of what is actually needed, simply because the recommender personally would want to have that just for bragging rights and thinking that it feels more cool or whatever.
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My impression was that this AP had been on 100Mb for years, and only jumped to 1Gb unexpectedly while the thread was going on. I also assumed the AP was not so critical that a brief period of testing maybe after hours would't be acceptable.
Correct.
The cable runs through walls and I don't see any easy way to replace it.
While I think I understand the principles behind these networks, re-terminating a cable may be beyond my capabilities.
Doesn't sound like there's a lot of point to doing anything other than plugging the AP into another port and making sure it connects at 1G all the time, and moving the patch cable at the switch end into another port on the switch to confirm it's not the switch port itself (and swap that cable). After that, call a wiring tech. Or see if anybody from Ars lives locally and owns equipment.
Good suggestionsDoesn't sound like there's a lot of point to doing anything other than plugging the AP into another port and making sure it connects at 1G all the time, and moving the patch cable at the switch end into another port on the switch to confirm it's not the switch port itself (and swap that cable). After that, call a wiring tech. Or see if anybody from Ars lives locally and owns equipment.
I can justify buying some equipment, but can't justify hiring a network admin.
Well, not a network admin. Just somebody that can do wiring. Pay somebody to get it done right (and if they don't do it right they come back and fix it at no cost), or they pay for your equipment and all the time you spend testing and learning how to do something that you'll probably never need to do again. The latter might be fun for you but not good for the company. (And maybe just consider signing a local third-party MSP/IT service to handle issues like this on an as-needed basis, with a flat hourly rate. Only costs anything when you actually need it that way, and skips having to waste your time.)Good suggestions
I can justify buying some equipment, but can't justify hiring a network admin.
Fun times when you find out some subset of early termination work done on the CAT6 cable plant, was done as 568A instead of 568B. And you've got old model 100mb Cisco phones that will power up on 568B but not on 568A.
Also seen weirdness from when a cable was slightly out of the jack, and so it only linked up 2 pairs of wires, almost like it was for 100mb only.
There was a protective tab over the RJ45 latch and sometimes, it would switch places with the RJ45 latch and allow for a tight friction fit, but inconsistent network response.
Finding that out when you're on top of a 14' ladder and the termination is stuck behind a T-rail mounting bracket for a 500 series Aruba AP is no fun.
Also seen weirdness from when a cable was slightly out of the jack, and so it only linked up 2 pairs of wires, almost like it was for 100mb only.
There was a protective tab over the RJ45 latch and sometimes, it would switch places with the RJ45 latch and allow for a tight friction fit, but inconsistent network response.
Finding that out when you're on top of a 14' ladder and the termination is stuck behind a T-rail mounting bracket for a 500 series Aruba AP is no fun.
Great news, the newer Aruba APs use a heavy metal rail instead, sometimes which is not the correct size to fit on a rail. So you spend a lot of time bending it out to make it go into place over the rail so you don't have to hammer it on.
Jesus what is this overkill... So bring large pliers and hammers for AP install, got it...
I used a flat blade screw driver to bend it out.
It has to do with building code.
AP-555 is more than double the weight? or something like that, of the AP-2xx series. To meet code, Aruba went with metal rails instead of plastic.
Once you go above 4 lbs, depending upon the state, you may be required to do all sorts of reinforcement to the drop ceiling to make it meet code. CA is more rigorous in this regard due to earthquakes, but I would think those states prone to cyclones might have something similar.
This sounds like video cards that now require slot reinforcement and support brackets to hold up the massive factory-installed heatsinks that are required due to the amount of power used by the GPUs to meet the performance levels demanded, and so much energy flowing that they light on fire.
moosemaimer
Ars Scholae Palatinae
How is that even possible? A/B is a 1:1 swap of the orange and green pairs, how does the phone know what color the wire is? Or was it A on one end and B on the other?
"Danger Mouse said:
Fun times when you find out some subset of early termination work done on the CAT6 cable plant, was done as 568A instead of 568B. And you've got old model 100mb Cisco phones that will power up on 568B but not on 568A."
...Which indicates part of the cabling plant was done in 568B and part was done in 568A, thus- yes, not everything matching on pinout (A one end, B on the other- logically).
Or when you're troubleshooting the blue cable, only to find out that it's actually the gray cable.
More specifically, having A on one end and B on the other end creates a crossover connection. Most devices these days are auto-MDIX including the switches and the endpoint devices, so everything can be A or B throughout, or they can cross over at the ends (only comparing the far ends matters, it could cross and uncross at multiple points in between), but older devices and even some rare new devices won't work. They might power up (or might not) but be unable to establish communication because the data pins are connecting send to send, receive to receive.
This often happens when they have one guy in the switch closet punching everything down on a panel, and another guy or guys going around and terminating the wall jacks in the offices, and the two groups have experience in different fields. 568B matches older UTP pinouts so people in the field would use it (for compatibility with existing wiring) and train their apprentices or assistances or whatever to use it, but others who were trained according to more modern specifications may use 568A which is the recommended pattern. 568B is less compatible with telephone applications (dual-line phones).
Whenever I've had to do network wiring, I've always found existing 568B, and used 568B myself, and the vendors I've worked with always used it in new installations which were always for Ethernet or for digital phones. It's the only one I can remember immediately. But 568A is required by many contracts including government. Yet, every pre-made patch cable you can buy is 568B.
Reminds me that a few weeks ago, I finally tracked down this strange 10mb half duplex connection.
Turns out someone used 25 pair telecom wire and terminated into CAT5e RJ45 keystones.
Amazingly enough, Cisco 8800 series phones power up on it and eventually connect to the call manager. Can’t get computers to work on it though.
Turns out someone used 25 pair telecom wire and terminated into CAT5e RJ45 keystones.
Amazingly enough, Cisco 8800 series phones power up on it and eventually connect to the call manager. Can’t get computers to work on it though.
"Breaker breaker. TeenWitch73, this is MemeMaster69420. Bear in the air is in your vicinity. Make sure you have Excel open and at least 3 sheets. Over."
"MemeMaster69420, TeenWitch73. 10-4 Just saw BigDong14 eaten by the bear. Going for a 10-100. Linear Lungs near cubicle 17B may intercept the bear and take the heat off the rest. Out."
I feel dumb but I'm laughing at myself for this.
I won't say that I ever split a single cat5 line into a 2-pair 100base-T connection and used the other two pairs for VoIP phone connections when I was doing telecom work... but I also won't say that I didn't.
You can buy pre-made plug-in splitters for that, good quality. Really nothing wrong with doing it yourself as long as you don't untwist so much that it affects performance and are careful about securing the wires since the sheath isn't there to hold everything tight. Of course if your phones support gigabit it would be better to just plug the PC into the phone, and a cheap switch at each desk would be better if gigabit wasn't supported. If data transfer happens to any significant degree, cutting down to 100Mb these days is awful.
One of my clients moved their server rack to a different room from where their telecoms came in, and the server had 4 fax ports on it. We had the wiring guys run several extra cables for future needs (and still ran out quickly), and I split a single Cat5e patch cable into 4 analog phone lines (though the card had RJ-45 ports instead of RJ-11). That was a pain to maintain, including when they later moved it to a different floor entirely so all new wiring was run, because we had to make sure which phone number from the analog service was on which pairs and I had to match those up with my patch cable to connect to the right ports in order to configure the proper arrangement of send-only and receive-only. And yes, this was only like 6 years ago, at a law firm that received a lot of faxes.
I've had to make a bunch of "splitters" when PCI became a "thing" to isolate credit card readers into their own physical LAN. That hasn't been needed for a while now that secure semi-integrated readers exist that connect to the PoS terminal over USB.
A few sites had APs at the registers as well (because that was the only Ethernet wiring at that part of the store), so I've had APs running on 2 pairs over 802.11af/at Poe and a PoS terminal or credit card reader on the other 2 pairs. The setups worked surprisingly well and were very solid, with no packet errors, for many years. Finally completed cabling upgrades at the last store with this setup only late last year. The APs only supported things like tablets for taking inventory, etc, so the measly 100Mb link was perfect fine.
A few sites had APs at the registers as well (because that was the only Ethernet wiring at that part of the store), so I've had APs running on 2 pairs over 802.11af/at Poe and a PoS terminal or credit card reader on the other 2 pairs. The setups worked surprisingly well and were very solid, with no packet errors, for many years. Finally completed cabling upgrades at the last store with this setup only late last year. The APs only supported things like tablets for taking inventory, etc, so the measly 100Mb link was perfect fine.
Just ran into this. Turns out the POE injectors I bought only supported 100 Mbps. Purchasing two gigabit POE injectors.