How to comprehensively test the network cable in LAN

In the process of establishing a LAN, people often purchase high-end NICs, switches, and routers at no cost, ignoring the "inconspicuous" network cable quality. In fact, the quality of the network cable has the most direct impact on the transmission performance of the LAN. Therefore, testing the network cable is an important part in the process of purchasing the network cable, only by watching more and testing more can you choose products that truly reassure you in the network cable market, and only by testing more, you can get a real feeling of the network cable, for this reason, I will discuss in detail how to perform a comprehensive test on the network cable.

1. Test the speed of the network cable

Testing the transmission speed of the network cable is the most effective way to identify the authenticity of the network cable quality. To make the test closer to the actual use environment and reduce external interference, I suggest using dual-host direct connection. At the same time, in order to ensure the accuracy of the test, try to use good quality brand NICs to ensure that no hardware bottleneck occurs during the test. At the same time, ensure that the computer system is clean, clean, and fast to run, otherwise, the running speed of the computer will affect the network transmission speed. In addition, when connecting the network cable, try to use a good quality crystal head, but also to ensure that the line head is standardized, only in this way can the external factors affect the network cable transmission speed to a minimum degree.

2. Check network cable flexibility

Good-quality network cables take into account the convenience of wiring during design and try to make them flexible. No matter how it is bent, It is very convenient and it is not easy to break. At present, many profitors in the market have included other cheap metal components in the originally copper-quality network cable to achieve high sales profits. This will reduce the cost of the network cable, however, the quality and performance of the network cable are very different. The phenomenon is that the texture of the network cable is not so soft, and the transmission speed of the network cable is also greatly reduced. If such a network cable is bent repeatedly during cabling, the copper cable in the network cable may be broken. Of course, if you find that the network cable is too soft, you should also note that it may be a fake or shoddy product.

3. Test the flammability of the network cable

In general, the materials that make up the network cable must have anti-combustion resistance. Otherwise, if there is a fire, the loss will be heavy. Therefore, when selecting a network cable, you must check the flammability of the network cable skin to identify the authenticity. During the specific test, you can use scissors to cut the outer skin of a network cable of about 2 cm length, and then use a lighter to burn the outer skin. The outer skin of the genuine network cable will gradually melt and deform under the fireworks barbecue, however, the outer skin will certainly not burn on its own. If the outer skin of the network cable cannot resist the test of the fire, then the transmission speed of the network cable should be too high, after all, such a network cable is insecure in the cabling project. Using it will leave a great security risk. I once found a genuine network cable and a fake network cable, and lit them with a lighter at the same time. 6 seconds later, the genuine network cable gradually melted and deformed over time, the fake and shoddy network cable is easily ignited in less than 2 seconds, and is accompanied by a large amount of black smoke.

4. Test the network cable temperature resistance.

The cabling project has high requirements on network cable resistance to changes in external temperature. Do not say that it can resist any environmental changes. At least the network cable cannot be softened or cracked in high or low temperature environments. In order to ensure that the performance of the network cable is not affected in a high temperature environment, the external skin material used by the genuine network cable can resist the high temperature test of about 50 degrees, and similar network cable softening or deformation will not occur. If you take a short piece of network cable skin and place it next to the stove for a while, and find that the outer skin is softer than the normal outer skin, it means that the quality of the network cable is definitely not hard.

When selecting a network cable, sometimes the test environment or conditions are missing and the network cable quality or materials cannot be tested using the above method, you may want to identify the authenticity of the network cable by observing the identifier on the outer skin of the network cable. Under normal circumstances, the external network cables of the regular brand have the network cable type identification and Manufacturer's trademark. For example, CAT5 indicates that the network cable is a category-5 line, and CAT6 indicates that the network cable is a category-6 line; if there is no identifier for the outer cover of the network cable, everyone should be vigilant and find a way to create conditions to test and identify the network cable according to the above method.

5. Test the network cable Bypass

We all know that the common twisted pair wires are connected by four sets of Interconnected Network cables. The distance between a network cable is actually the length of the network cable. Generally, people use the distance to indicate the closeness of each pair of lines to each other, in order to minimize the degree of crosstalk between each pair of line pairs, the line pairs are usually closely wound in a counter-clockwise direction, in addition, the distance used for each pair of line pairs should not be the same. However, in order to reduce the production process and reduce the process cost, many network cable manufacturers often wrap four pairs of lines around the same distance, and even the distance between many poor network cables is as high as several centimeters, in this way, the crosstalk between line pairs increases greatly, seriously affecting the performance of the network cable.

6. Test the extendibility of the outer skin

Considering that the network cable often needs to be bent during cabling, many regular manufacturers have made some expansion for the outer skin to ensure that the network cable is not damaged during bending. Therefore, when we pull the regular network cable with both hands, we find that the outer skin is scalable. If the outer skin of the network cable is broken by force, or the outer skin is cracked by external force, it indicates that the quality of the network cable is faulty.

I believe that after reading the above content, many of my friends will be surprised. at ordinary times, I may never care about the quality of the network cable. I didn't think there were so many "xuanjicang" in the small network cable ". I still remember a friend of mine once spent 250 yuan to buy a box of cable. At that time, he was proud to buy an internal price. As a result, those network cables can only reach the speed of 1 Mbit/S at a distance of about 30 meters, which is clearly the target of the profiteer! Here, I urge all my friends to be vigilant when selecting network products in the future, especially when selecting products or devices that have never or seldom cared about quality, we need to have more quality awareness and a long eye.