Hi all,

I'm getting really frustrated with my LAN.

I spent some time yesterday running new CAT5 cable across my terrace and down into our warehouse.
I used to have an unshielded CAT5 cable performing my LAN functions, but the speed has got slower and slower recently, and has dropped to about 2.8 Mbps copy times from other clients.
Its route was different to the one I installed yesterday.

The length of the new install is about 80m. I used shielded cable, and the RJ45 female connecting sockets also allowed for earthing. I have a LAN tester, and all 8 connections and the earth all test fine. 9 LEDs, all bright and unblinking.
Both routers claim that once connected, it's at Gb.
But it starts off fast, and then slowly, the speed drops. A couple of hours later, and while the LED indicating speed on the router remains at Gb, the speed has dropped to about 5 or 8 mbps.

Yes I've tried multiple clients on both ends, and yes I've swapped out my smaller router (unearthed) for another one and the problem persists.
Also, I've got a shock a couple of times while plugging and unplugging cables. Not anything approaching a mains shock, but a hell of a lot more than a static shock. Enough to make me feel it a few seconds afterwards.
The cable runs along the terrace with the air con pipes, and follows those pipes down the wall into the warehouse.
Once in the warehouse, it snakes round more air con cables, and then follows some electrical wiring conduits across the ceiling into the far corner and then into the router.
Can running along side electrical cables and or air con pipes cause problems with the quality of the ethernet signal? I've heard of eddy currents and so on.....

Perhaps the issue of getting shocked and also perhaps the speed is that my smaller router up in the flat isn't earthed?

Thanks for all any help guys.
Diz

Are your cables wired to the correct standard?

Running CAT5 near mains power can introduce interference etc which causes errors and slow speeds due to packets needing to be resent & a smaller window size.

The shock sounds like a voltage difference due to you linking earths from 2 different phases. This is not good and can be deadly as you could be chucking 800v across a very small wire.

You shouldn't run data cables parallel to electrical cables. The shield could easily pick up a high voltage.

I would pay the £200 or so and run a fibre.