# Moving a router / modem / networking gear into closet



## Nick (Jan 25, 2012)

I'm moving some of my networking gear in a closet in a bedroom in my house. Here's the situation and current setup: 

Cable modem, connected to router, which then connects on the ethernet ports to a Sonos bridge and a NAS device. Everything else in my house is wireless (ps3, google TV, laptop / desktop / tablet, printer). 

I moved my office in my house recently as part of our rearranging the upstairs to prep a baby room, so my office went from a corner bedroom to a middle bedroom. The problem was that when I moved the office, that extra 15' or so that I moved the networking gear made the wifi signal too weak in my living room to actually connect any more, or at least it was incredibly spotty. 

So right now, I have all that gear sitting on a nightstand in a bedroom in my house. I'd like to get it out of the way. 

In order to do that, I need to do the following:


Pull the existing coax cable outlet from the wall in the bedroom, install a splitter, run a new coax into the attic and back down to a new gang box which I will install in the cloest
Install a new power outlet into the closet as well so I can power the modem / router / etc.
I have on ethernet jacks in my house. What i'd like to do while I'm in the walls is pull a new ethernet cable from the closet (new jack) into the office so can hard wire my desktop. That's primarily because I do a lot of file transfers on the NAS device and it is much, much quicker over Cat6 cable than it is presently over wifi. 

Questions I have: 
For the coax cable, I was just going to get a splitter, but on an Amazon review someone mentioned if you are using a cable modem you should actually get a tap if one leg of the line is longer (which it will be). Is that true / what is the actual difference between a splitter and a tap? 

Do I need to do anything special for intsalling Cat6 cable? To make it easier on myself I was going to get female - female adapters (vs. actually manually making the connection to the CAT6 outlet.). I'm assuming as long as I have one on each end, data can go bidirectional, in other words plugging the router into the wall with cat6, which then goes through the wall, to a nother cat6 cable connected to the computer should be fine? 

Let's break out those real nerds now :beer:


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## bvibert (Jan 25, 2012)

That should work fine with the CAT6 cable, but if it were me I'd put the little extra effort in to install an outlet.  This, coming from a guy who has a patch cable running from his router, under his bedroom door, across the floor, up a dresser, and into his PS3.


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## speden (Jan 25, 2012)

I ran some cat6 cables in my house a couple weeks ago.  Seemed the same as working with cat5 except there was a plastic guide thing running down the middle of the cable.  But other than that  I was able to crimp on the ethernet connectors the same as cat5 since the internal wires have the same colors.

Wall jacks look nice, but are a lot of extra work to install, and the extra connection can degrade the signal.  I have one wall jack that makes a gigabit port run at only 100 mbs, so I stopped using it.  Most of my PC's are on the first floor, so what I do is just drill a small hole in the floor behind the PC (just big enough to put the cut cable through) and then run the lines along the basement ceiling.  Then I just crimp on the male ethernet connectors after cutting the cable to the exact length I need.  I have all my switches/wireless router/cable modem in the basement ceiling.

I used to use wireless for most of the house, but going from wireless to wired gigabit ethernet is a big improvement.  Stuff I couldn't stream well over wireless (like high def video) now streams fine, especially when a lot of the family is on the network at the same time.  LAN games work better too.


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## Glenn (Jan 25, 2012)

Look into installing a cheapo wifi router as a Wireless Access Point. 

My story into nerdery: Bought an AirPort Express so we could play tunes via the iPad outside to my old arse shelf system inside...powering the outdoor speakers. I was getting a lot of dropped signals. A buddy suggested setting up a WAP. 

I had some CAT5 already set up, so that was easy. I ran that back before wifi routers were popular/affordable. Once I had the WAP setup, a lot less dropping. 

In your case (if I'm reading your setup correctly) a WAP would be easiest. Run some CAT 5, set up the WAP and you're set. You could, in theory, leave things as is. 

If you've already done this, just ignore...I used Netstumbler recently to troubleshoot some wifi device issues. That helps with channels regarding what your neighbors are using. Lets you stay off their channels...most leave them to the factory setting.


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## Nick (Jan 30, 2012)

Well, got it almost all done. Just have to finish pulling a new Cat6 line to my office, but everything is installed in the closet. I drilled a hole in the ceiling by accident so I have to patch that.


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