I have an xbox 360 and it's about 80 ft away from the router. as many people found the hard way, the 360's NIC is a complete and total abomination. it has a maximum range of a whopping 15ft. (This distance measurement is assuming you're using unshielded cat5) I don't want to use wireless cause first of all the adapter is $100 and the n I'd still need some range extenders or access points.

so here's my setup
note:all cable I'm using is shielded.
cable modem>6" straight through cat6>linksys router>30ft cat6 crossover>8port switch>30ft crossover cat6>2port switch for repetition\amplification>20ft straight through cable cat6>xbox 360.

anyone think it'll work. just running straight 80ft cable makes the 360 fail to get an IP.

Hi pr0n,

I don’t know the exact specs for cat6 opposed to cat5, but we use cat5 for a digital video system, and once you extended off of the main source line more then 50’ it starts going downhill fast regardless of what you’re extending it with. It looks like your talking about 80 + feet total cable, so I would say it’s going to pretty tight since it didn’t work with the straight 80’. Do you have all the resources readily available to test it out first (maybe barrow from a friend), I would hate to see you buy it all and it doesn’t work, I would say save your money and go wireless. I don’t have an Xbox myself (PS3 man, but that a conversation for later ) however my friend has one, and has no problem with the wireless setup anywhere in his house upstairs, downstairs, basement, etc…

cat six allows for for much less attenuation and data loss than cat5, the shielding factor is to make sure I'm not getting interference with other stuff. the cabling is relatively cheap I can make my own for about $30 and the switches I already have. except the 2 port one which is cheap as [bleep][edit]... heck... since when is that a swear word?...[edit] anyways. however, the linksys techs have told me the setup should work with just one switch about 15 feet from the xbox. the switches "repeat" the signal so it's like it's a new signal from each switch. The problem is the xbox wireless isn't any higher quality than the xbox NIC so I'd just be running into more problems there. the only other option is fiber optic but I'd be incurring about $250 to run that, or rewire my entire house for a [bleep] xbox.

differences between cat 6 and 5
http://www.broadbandutopia.com/caandcaco.html

This post has been edited by pr0n: Nov 21 2008, 04:10 PM

nice link on the Cat5e and Cat6 Comparision, I'm sure someone will come along that knows a little bit more about this then me, but hey I say for 30 bucks it can't hurt to try it out.

bump

Here's a video on the differences between cat5e and cat6!

http://www.serverracksandcable.com/Cat5EVsCat6Video.php

Also some more articles on Cat5, Cat5e, and Cat6 here:

http://www.serverracksandcable.com/articles.php