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Warning: that cheap cable tester from Amazon just cost me a whole afternoon

Picked up a no-name cable tester for $18 because I figured it would speed things up on a new build in Aurora last Tuesday. Got through 60 feet of Cat6 runs, terminated everything, and the tester said all pairs were good. Hooked up the gear and nothing worked. Replaced terminations, still dead. Finally busted out my Fluke and found the 4-5 pair was shorted inside a wall plate. That Amazon special never caught it, and I lost 4 hours of time and 3 service calls. Anyone else trust a cheap tester and get burned?
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2 Comments
jessica_robinson23
Found a dead mouse fused into my network switch once, that explained a lot.
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lucasjackson
The five mice I found in my router closet last year made me rethink my whole network setup. Those little guys chewed through two cables before I finally sealed up every gap in the walls. Sometimes the hardware failures are just wildlife doing its thing.
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