Why doesn't my female to female ethernet connector work?

Question

Just broke my ethernet cord but the cord is way too long and installed outside and inside the house to just replace. it still works but the little plastic piece broke off so connection is always loose. I bought a F2F ethernet piece and when I plug the broken piece into one side as firmly as possible and the good ethernet cord in the other side I get absolutely no signal what so ever. Again the broken piece DOES work as I have been able to just plug it into my computer and a signal is present but the connection is loose and is not reliable. I can't imagine I'm over looking something here as it seems to be a pretty easy process but something is definitely not working... Any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

Answer 1

Make sure you really have a "Eithernet" F2F adapter.  There are 8-wire RJ45 Telco connectors and 8-wire RJ45 Eithernet adapters.  The eithernet one usually has one plug go in "upside-down" from the other because the pins are a different sequence.

Wrong thing: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....

Right thing: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....

You'd probably do better to buy a jack, cut the bad end off your cable, and splice it in place.  This doesn't require any special tools but you'd need another network cable to reach from the jack to your whatever.

Jack: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....

Then snap that into one of these...they have blank snap-ins to cover the second hole.

Surface-mount: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....

Wall-Face-Plate: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....

Or, you can get a crimp-tool and ends ($20 DataShark crimp tool at HomeDepot and $10 for 30 ends...it's far more expensive at other stores) and replace the end.  Crimping takes a bit of practice, when I first did it at work, I had about 5 bad ones before I got the wires in the right order.  If you have any friends that work for IT they may be able to borrow the tool from work and put a end on for you (maybe even have the proper expensive tools to test the connection) and save the money.

NOTE: if you replace the end with a jack or plug, keep the broken one to see which wireing scheme was used.  If you mix up the types you'll have a crossover cable instead of a normal strait-thru cable.

If you cut the end off, here's a plethera of information to help you find out which wire is "pin 1" in the existing plug and how to wire it.  It would be either green-white or orange-white for the first wire and that's how you know which standard to use.

http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ether...

Answer 2

Clip off the old connector, go down to radio shack and get a new male connector and a crimp tool.  make a new connector.

Answer 3

It could be that the connection is loose between your "broken" cord and the new one F2F piece have gotten, or the F2F piece is defective. If you want you can cut the "broken" cable, strip the cable, and place a new jack on it.

Answer 4

Just because it looks OK doesn't mean it is.  The only way to test it is with an ethernet cable tester.  Just because the light comes on doesn't mean anything.

Save yourself some grief and just buy a new cable.