On 12/29/2010 9:52 AM, Blake Hudson wrote: > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: Re: [CentOS] 2 Ethernet cabling question > From: Raymond Lillard <ryl at sonic.net> > To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> > Date: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:36:43 AM >> On 12/28/2010 08:01 PM, Drew wrote: >>>> The colors do not matter. What matters is the pairs. >>> And every person who comes after you will curse your work because >>> *both* the colors *and* the pairs are part of the 568A/B standard. >>> >>> In my shop if you tried that you'd be very quickly looking for work >>> elsewhere. ;-) >> Electrically it matters also. If you want to be able to >> have the cable usable to the full distance specified by the >> standard, colors matter. The reason is placement in the >> bundle and crosstalk between the pairs. >> > I concur. What some people gloss over is that not all the pairs are the > same. Take an ethernet cable apart at some length greater than a few > inches and you will immediately see that some pairs can have twice as > many twists as another. This results in slightly different electrical > and delay properties for each pair - that become exaggerated at > distance. Bottom line, stick with the color scheme. Now THAT, I did not know. I've never stripped a network cable farther than the inch or two I need in order to crimp on connectors. And to set the record straight, I originally said that switching the color scheme (even if you keep the matched pairs), is a bad idea because it will come back to bite you (or someone else) when you have to do work on the network later. All I was saying is that it is possible to do -- not that it is a good idea. -- Bowie