Can't say I've see three pairs connected, but it's very common to
find a patch lead with only two pairs. Pins 1&2 and pins 3&6.
Commonly supplied with consumer routers that had 10/100 Mbps
ports. Good for throttling the kids gaming machine so you can
stream 4K to your telly. Tell them its QOS.


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

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On 24/05/2025 03:32, Graham. wrote:

Can't say I've see three pairs connected, but it's very common to
find a patch lead with only two pairs. Pins 1&2 and pins 3&6.
Commonly supplied with consumer routers that had 10/100 Mbps
ports. Good for throttling the kids gaming machine so you can
stream 4K to your telly. Tell them its QOS.

Hasn't this always been the same, cables supplied by the manufacturer
with only limited connections to meet the basic standard. When AV
consumer equipment was connected via SCART I used to throw away the
leads with a couple/few of the connections in favour of leads I
purchased with all 21 pins connected. Perhaps more common were leads
supplied with equipment with no or inadequate screening.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

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Chris Holmes <chrispvholmes@gmail.com> wrote:

alan_m <junk@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

On 24/05/2025 03:32, Graham. wrote:

Can't say I've see three pairs connected, but it's very common to
find a patch lead with only two pairs. Pins 1&2 and pins 3&6.
Commonly supplied with consumer routers that had 10/100 Mbps
ports. Good for throttling the kids gaming machine so you can
stream 4K to your telly. Tell them its QOS.

Hasn't this always been the same, cables supplied by the manufacturer
with only limited connections to meet the basic standard. When AV
consumer equipment was connected via SCART I used to throw away the
leads with a couple/few of the connections in favour of leads I
purchased with all 21 pins connected. Perhaps more common were leads supplied with equipment with no or inadequate screening.

This was supplied to the NHS along with hundreds of others (I’m sure the majority must be correctly wired) when we commissioned a new HQ building a few years ago.

I think patch leads are machine made - maybe something happened and the
wires weren't correctly located when the plug was put on. Bit surprising it passed QC though!

Theo

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Chris Holmes wrote:

Found the manufacturers had only used 3 pairs! Actually, without putting a magnifier or a multimeter on it, I’m not sure its that good!

Was it actually sold as an Ethernet cable?

There are some uses for 8P6C cables in telephony, hence why it pays to
be pedantic and not refer to everything as an "RJ45" instead of 8P8C ...
That said, telephony can get away with cat3 rather that cat6.

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On 23/05/2025 21:26, Chris Holmes wrote:

We have often wondered why some of our brand new identical spec laptops complete their software install quicker than others despite being connected to the same Cisco managed switch.

Then a clip broke of a connector and I took a close look at it to double check the wiring colours before fitting a new plug…..

Found the manufacturers had only used 3 pairs! Actually, without putting a magnifier or a multimeter on it, I’m not sure its that good!

Only had three pairs, or had four and just failed to terminate one properly?

There are wires in the leftmost two “pins”. Wires in the centre two, and wires in the rightmost two.

Somehow I don’t think we were getting GB speeds!!

Sometimes happens even with a cable that should have all pairs. I setup
three PCs for someone the other day, left them so I could remote access
them, and set about migrating data from the old machines. Each had about
30 to 60 gig to shift. The first two went fairly quickly, the last one
was reporting significantly longer to copy. Only then did I realise that
one of the old machines was running at 100Mbps. I will have to see if it
was a knackered patch lead when I go to retrieve the "to be retired"
machines.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

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On 23/05/2025 21:26, Chris Holmes wrote:

We have often wondered why some of our brand new identical spec laptops complete their software install quicker than others despite being connected to the same Cisco managed switch.

Then a clip broke of a connector and I took a close look at it to double check the wiring colours before fitting a new plug…..

Found the manufacturers had only used 3 pairs! Actually, without putting a magnifier or a multimeter on it, I’m not sure its that good!

There are wires in the leftmost two “pins”. Wires in the centre two, and wires in the rightmost two.

Somehow I don’t think we were getting GB speeds!!

An ethernet cable tester is less than £10 (or £12 from Screwfix).
Invaluable for sorting problems especially if you make your own.
I now use pass through RJ45 plugs because I can't see if the wires are
inserted correctly in poor light.


--
Regards
wasbit

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On 25/05/2025 10:26, wasbit wrote:

On 23/05/2025 21:26, Chris Holmes wrote:

We have often wondered why some of our brand new identical spec laptops
complete their software install quicker than others despite being
connected
to the same Cisco managed switch.

Then a clip broke of a connector and I took a close look at it to double
check the wiring colours before fitting a new plug…..

Found the manufacturers had only used 3 pairs!  Actually, without
putting a
magnifier or a multimeter on it, I’m not sure its that good!



There are wires in the leftmost two “pins”.  Wires in the centre two, and
wires in the rightmost two.

Somehow I don’t think we were getting GB speeds!!

An ethernet cable tester is less than £10 (or £12 from Screwfix). Invaluable for sorting problems especially if you make your own.
I now use pass through RJ45 plugs because I can't see if the wires are inserted correctly in poor light.

I gave up making RJ454 patch leads years ago, Too high a failure rate.

You need all 8 pins connected. Other things than 10Mbps Ethernet use RJ45




--
Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
But Marxism is the crack cocaine.

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On Sun, 25 May 2025 11:32:47 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 25/05/2025 10:26, wasbit wrote:

On 23/05/2025 21:26, Chris Holmes wrote:

We have often wondered why some of our brand new identical spec laptops
complete their software install quicker than others despite being
connected
to the same Cisco managed switch.

Then a clip broke of a connector and I took a close look at it to double >>> check the wiring colours before fitting a new plug�..

Found the manufacturers had only used 3 pairs!� Actually, without
putting a
magnifier or a multimeter on it, I�m not sure its that good!



There are wires in the leftmost two �pins�.� Wires in the centre two, and >>> wires in the rightmost two.

Somehow I don�t think we were getting GB speeds!!

An ethernet cable tester is less than �10 (or �12 from Screwfix).
Invaluable for sorting problems especially if you make your own.
I now use pass through RJ45 plugs because I can't see if the wires are
inserted correctly in poor light.

I gave up making RJ454 patch leads years ago, Too high a failure rate.

Patch leads use stranded conductors.
You weren't trying to put plugs on solid-core cable were you?
The IDC "blade" tends to fracture the wire.

(Yes I know you can get plugs with a modified blade profile for solid
wires, but you would need to specifically order them).

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

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On 25/05/2025 13:01, Graham. wrote:

On Sun, 25 May 2025 11:32:47 +0100, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 25/05/2025 10:26, wasbit wrote:

On 23/05/2025 21:26, Chris Holmes wrote:

We have often wondered why some of our brand new identical spec laptops >>>> complete their software install quicker than others despite being
connected
to the same Cisco managed switch.

Then a clip broke of a connector and I took a close look at it to double >>>> check the wiring colours before fitting a new plug…..

Found the manufacturers had only used 3 pairs!  Actually, without
putting a
magnifier or a multimeter on it, I’m not sure its that good!



There are wires in the leftmost two “pins”.  Wires in the centre two, and
wires in the rightmost two.

Somehow I don’t think we were getting GB speeds!!

An ethernet cable tester is less than £10 (or £12 from Screwfix).
Invaluable for sorting problems especially if you make your own.
I now use pass through RJ45 plugs because I can't see if the wires are
inserted correctly in poor light.

I gave up making RJ454 patch leads years ago, Too high a failure rate.

Patch leads use stranded conductors.
You weren't trying to put plugs on solid-core cable were you?

No.

The IDC "blade" tends to fracture the wire.

Agreed

(Yes I know you can get plugs with a modified blade profile for solid
wires, but you would need to specifically order them).

No. We used stranded. But about 1 in 3 connections had one or more
wires that didn't work, and the labour cost of making them well exceeded
the cost of buying them eventually.

And you end up with more colours.

--
"Corbyn talks about equality, justice, opportunity, health care, peace, community, compassion, investment, security, housing...."
"What kind of person is not interested in those things?"

"Jeremy Corbyn?"

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