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I just moved into a new house and the previous owners had put phone & ethernet jacks in most of the rooms. However, the vast majority of these cables are terminated in "EnQ Home Network" terminals in the basement and they're not labeled at all.

What's the quickest & easiest way to find out which cables are which? The wall jacks are rj45 but the cables in basement are punched into these EnQ modules. I figure I could put some kind of terminator into the jack and then take a voltmeter to the basement, but for rooms with 3 jacks in the wall this would take a while (although I'd get in some good cardio running up & down the stairs).

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  • or a friend with a mobile phone on the other end ;)
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    May 18, 2011 at 1:26
  • @Journeyman: Or a walkie-talkie... or a home phone with intercom.
    – Hello71
    May 18, 2011 at 1:27

1 Answer 1

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Buy yourself a cable test kit with a toner, it will be the fastest way to test continuity and pair order. They are relatively cheap for their value in such a job.

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  • Beware that many cheap Ethernet cable testers will tell you if you got the pinout right, but won't tell you if you got the twisted pairs wrong. I think I've got at least 200 SU rep for helping people realize that they got their pairs wrong even though they got the pinout right.
    – Spiff
    May 18, 2011 at 6:30
  • The models with the toners built in are usually in the $100-150 range, they are usually pretty good for the average home user. Don't go with anything under $80. If you can afford it, the testers in the $300 range will even tell you at what distance a pair in a cable has a problem.
    – MaQleod
    May 18, 2011 at 7:00
  • This; if you were dealing with literally one set of jacks I wouldn't bother, but this is probably a worthwhile investment otherwise if you plan to stay in this house for any length of time.
    – Shinrai
    May 18, 2011 at 14:24
  • It seems there is really only one right answer :) I did some research, found a nice one and we'll see how it goes. Thanks for the comments.
    – Dave
    May 18, 2011 at 21:19

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