Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
AEConfidential

Maybe someone can help me. My house has some pre-wired cat5e plugs in the walls. I have my MI424WR router upstairs and my Sony blu ray player downstairs. I first connected the router and blu ray player to the wall with cat5e cables, no luck. I then tried using a cat5e crossover cable from the router to the wall, no luck. The Sony blu ray player has everything set to auto, but do I need to configure something? Can someone help me figure out what is not working? Thank you.

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@AEConfidential wrote:

Maybe someone can help me. My house has some pre-wired cat5e plugs in the walls. I have my MI424WR router upstairs and my Sony blu ray player downstairs. I first connected the router and blu ray player to the wall with cat5e cables, no luck. I then tried using a cat5e crossover cable from the router to the wall, no luck. The Sony blu ray player has everything set to auto, but do I need to configure something? Can someone help me figure out what is not working? Thank you.


Your first attempt was correct except that you needed to do one more thing.

All the cat 5e jacks in your walls run to a connection center somewhere in your house, closet, wall panel or the like.  In that connection centre will be a patch panel labelled with rooms or the numbers on the jacks in the rooms  Typically you would add a switch in there so that you could run multiple rooms by connecting the the switch to the connection from the room that the router is connected to.  The you would run ethernet cables from the port switches to the rooms that you want to service.

In your case where you only want to wire a single device you need to connect an ethernet cable between the 2 connections that you have the 2 devices connected to.

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
AEConfidential

Thanks for the response. I looked in the box earlier and see 10 ethernet cables connected to a patch panel (0-9). Shouldn't the wiring in the wall act like a hub with the router plugged into one wall jack?

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
Anti-Phish1
Master - Level 1

@AEConfidential wrote:

Shouldn't the wiring in the wall act like a hub with the router plugged into one wall jack?


No.  cat5 wiring doesn't work that way.  Unlike phone wiring where all the wires are connected together, cat5 wiring connects point-to-point between two Ethernet devices.  You need a continuous cat5 path from the blu-ray player to the router.  The patch panel merely provides a termination point for each cable. 

The easiest thing to do to get this working is to take a cat5 patch cord and use it as a jumper from the jack going to the blu-ray player and the jack going to the Actiontec router.  That will give you a continuous connection between the two devices.

Longer term, if you want to add devices in other rooms that have a cat5 cable, you will need to add a switch as viafax999 suggested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_switch

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=30&Tpk=ethernet%20switch&Order=PRICE

You will need to connect the jack going to the Actiontec router as well as the jack going to each room where you want an Ethernet connection to the switch.  The number of rooms you want active will determine how many ports you need on the switch.

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
AEConfidential

Thanks for your response...that explains everything...so now I just need to find out which 2 wires in the panel I need to connect and put plugs/ends on them, then get a coupler to connect them.

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
GaryDoug
Specialist - Level 1

What you said is correct, but more work than needed. Like Anti-Phish said, just put a short cat5 cable from one jack to the other. Maybe cheaper too. That way you leave the cables intact in case you want to add a switch later.

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@AEConfidential wrote:

Thanks for your response...that explains everything...so now I just need to find out which 2 wires in the panel I need to connect and put plugs/ends on them, then get a coupler to connect them.


Don't change the heads at the patch panel, just get a patch cable with male heads on each end and interconnect the 2 female sockets in the panel.

I would expect that if you inspect the wall sockets in the various rooms you will find a number on each one or else you'd expect the cables at the patch panel to be labelled instead.  Can't believe they would not have left some mean of identification. 

If not, and as I doubt you have a cable tester, then you will have to find the 2 wires the hard way by using a patch cable and connecting 0-1 0-2 etc. then 1-2 1-3 etc , only 45 combinations.  After each conection check the nic status on your machine and finally it will show connected.

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
AEConfidential

That's the problem, the cat5e cable ends in the patch panel are connected to what looks like a phone panel, but for cat5e. There's no plug ends in the panel, just the individual wires connected to some sort of circuit board.

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
GaryDoug
Specialist - Level 1

Ok then, you have a junction box, not a patch panel. It probably has a set of terminals that you can push wire onto, or a way to attach modular sockets. Can you see a manfacturer name and type number on the box?

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Re: Trying to connect Sony Blu Ray player to MI424WR router wired through in-wall connection, help!
GaryDoug
Specialist - Level 1

I think what you have is called a 110 punch down block. Just search for that on the internet and you will find lots of good information, including some do-it-yourself procedures. You would need a $5 tool to add any jumpers to it however. In the case that you have a 66 punch down block, you want to avoid using that since it is only for 10mbs or lower. They use those for telephone and earlier ethernet wiring.

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