Cisco Networking Basics for Beginners: Getting Started

Welcome to the World of Computer Networks. Learn to build small networks and
troubleshooting.

Prepare straight cable and cross cable in groups with clamping tools
Part I – Preparing Straight Cable with clamping tools.

What you will need:

 Cat5e Ethernet cable - I recommend purchasing a box of Cat5e cable.
 RJ-45 connectors
 Crimper Tool - capable of crimping 8 wire (RJ-45) and 6 wire (RJ-11). Most tools have built
in cutters too.
 Stripper Tool
 Scissors - I prefer using a scissors
 Cable Tester - For testing that your cable connections are good and there are not any open
or crossed wires

a scissors, a crimping tool, and cable testers Cat5E Ethernet cable and RJ-45
a stripping tool connectors

Steps to make a straight through Ethernet cable:

 Cut a piece of cable to the length you will need. Give a little extra to make room for
mistakes.
 Strip a half inch to an inch of the outer jacket away from the cable. If you use strippers
make sure not to nick the wire pairs and expose the copper, this could introduce crosstalk
onto your wires. I prefer to use a scissor and my fingers to tear away the jacket. Then I cut
with the scissors to clean up the edge.
  Now you need to untwist the wire pairs (not too much, only undo one or two twists) so you
can align them according to the EIA-TIA568B wire color sequence. I use my fingers to
straighten the wires by bending them back and forth, straightening them as they warm up.

EIA-TIA 568B Standard

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
white/orange orange white/green blue white/blue green white/brown brown

 You have to trim the ends of the wires so they line up and create a straight edge.

Now holding an RJ-45 connector with the tab side facing down, push the 8 wires into the
connector, sliding each wire into a groove. While holding the connector tab side down the
white/orange wire should be on the far left and the brown wire should be on the far right. It is very
important that the wires push all the way up and into the connector so that when the pins are
pushed down during crimping they will make contact with the wires. The sleave or jacket of the
cable (light blue below) should also be pushed in as far as it can go so it will be held in place once
crimped. You may want to pull the wires out and put them back in to make sure they are sliding in
correctly, this will also further straighten the wires.

notice the tab make sure it is facing down push the wires and sleave into the connector

Before crimping, examine the cable and connector from the side. Did the wires slide all the way up
in to the proper grooves? Are the colors in the proper order when observed from tab side down?
Did the jacket slide all the way into the connector? If not, you may need pull the cable out of the
connector, trim the wires or the jacket accordingly, and reinsert.

If everything looks good, using your crimper tool insert the connector and cable into the 8 wire slot
and press down tightly. This will cause a piece of plastic in the connector to press down on the
jacket and hold the cable in the connector preventing it from accidentally pulling out. Crimping also
forces copper pins in the connector to push down and make contact with the separate wires.
You are now finished terminating one end of the cable. Repeat the process on the other end of the
cable and when you are done, insert the cable into a cable tester and run a wire test to make sure
that none of the wires are accidentally crossed, by not being in the right order, or open by not
touching the connector pins. Depending on the cable tester you may need to read the manual to
understand the device output.

Lastly, test your cable by using it on your network. Attach the cable to your computer's NIC and the
other end to your switch. Do you see green lights? Open the Network Connections dialogue box in
Windows, does it show a properly enabled and active connection on the NIC. You can also look for
the status in your system tray network connections icon. If you have an internet connection, can
you browse the web? If not can you ping your gateway from a command prompt?
Part II – Preparing Cross Cable with clamping tools.

In a Ethernet networking environment – like in a family home with multiple PCs that are wired – the
computers must all connect to a central router. The router takes all the bits being sent out by the
computers and relays them onto the other devices on the network. However, a crossover cable can
be used to connect two devices directly, without the need for a router in the middle. It simply
reverses some of the pins so that the output on one computer is being sent to the input of another.

This is one use for a cross-over cable; the other is to expand a network by connecting another
network switch, thereby giving you more ports. It’s always handy to have a length of cross-over
cable around!

The diagram below, preferably printed out as a reference.

Untangle the wires (there should be 4 “twisted pairs”). Arrange them in the order shown on the
sheet from top to bottom; one end should be in arrangement A, the other B.
When you’ve got the order correct, bunch them together in a line. If you have some that stick up
beyond the others, use the crimping tool to crop them back to a uniform level.

The hardest part is placing these into the RJ45 plug without messing up the order. Hold the plug
with the clip side facing away from you; the gold pins should be facing towards you.

Push the cable right in – the notch at the end of the plug should just be over the cable shielding. If
it isn’t, you stripped too much shielding off, so consider cropping the cables back a little more.
When the wires are sitting tightly in the plug, insert in into the end of your crimping tool and push
down – in theory the crimper is shaped to the exact right size, but in practice I find pushing too hard
can crack the brittle plastic plug.

Repeat for the other end, using diagram B instead.

If you don’t have a cable tester, the easiest way to test is just to plug it in. Assuming you actually
have two devices if you got as far as making this cable, but an Apple computer will work just fine
too and will detect that it’s a cross-over. The status LEDs vary by device, but typically one will show
activity while the other indicates speed.