This has been a project I have been working on since January and it is mostly done. I still need a UPS, but otherwise everything is finished.

I ended up running 87 drops all over the house, and it worked out to just under 7000 feet of cabling. The house was under construction for most of the year and the second floor was completely open, so running cables was fairly easy.

Each bedroom has 5 drops (1 per wall and 1 for a TV) and I ran 4 drops to the TVs in the living and family rooms. I ran a dozen drops into my office, and I ended up running 7 drops for access points (I have 3 APs currently installed). There is also a fibre line that runs out to the shed so I can install a camera and an AP.

I also ran 24 drops for cameras and IoT devices. It was excessive, but I wanted the flexibility of installing things in the future.

For the rack I went with a 21U wall mounted one to save space, and I wanted to put a UPS underneath it. The room where it is located is a storage room in the basement, so as much as I wanted to put a full 42U rack in there, I couldn’t justify using that much space.

It was a pain to do it, but I relocated the ISP fibre line from the front of the house to the rack so everything is in one place. I also had an electrician run a dedicated power outlet as well. I also ran a coax line as well if I want to get a backup connection in the future.

I went over budget so I didn’t get new switches yet, so I’m just running some old Cisco switches until next year. I have been setting up my homelab, and the server at the bottom is my Proxmox server, and the box beside the NAS is my OPNsense box. I could also finally rack mount my Raspberry Pi cluster.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the outcome.

I'm working on setting up a home media server to run through Plex (I bought it a while ago). I've been diving into research about doing this, but am frankly a HUGE newbie. Currently, I'm overwhelmed at the equipment I likely need and am trying to figure out what is and isn't overkill...

Here's my current set up.

• I have a laptop with the pictured processor and RAM.
• It's connected via Ethernet to an old Modem/Router Combo (24x8 Cable Modem AC1900 plus Router, MG7700)
• The storage for my videos (ripped from DVDs) is on an external hard drive connected via USB 2.0.

Now, I know this setup isn't ideal, but it's where I started. There are probably multiple points of slowdown... Currently, when streaming with a TV that's on my network, it can (mostly) smoothly run lower quality shows (mostly 90s Star Trek) but struggles to stream anything more than 720p.

Ideally, I am looking to be able to stream 4k movies and also be able to smoothly access this network remotely with Plex so I can stream kids movies for my niece when I'm over.

Currently, I've been reading some discussions on getting an old workstation computer vs Mini PC vs NAS for running a server off of. But most of the recommended PCs or NAS I'm seeing actually have worse processors than the one in this laptop so maybe that's not the problem? I should probably move off of the laptop anyway but I'm not sure which way to go.

I should probably get an Independent Router and Modem, because I was reading that these combo ones can be pretty bad.

And the hard drive being external certainly can't help, right?

I'm just not sure where to start with deciding what to change to make things run smoother. Let me know if you have any advice on what I should prioritize upgrading to get a smoothly running home server!

Thanks!

I think I'm done... (who am I kidding)

Hey all,

I've been studying up to set up a MoCa line on my home network, and when checking on my coax situation I saw that my ISP has this interesting splitter setup in the cable box. The source line runs into the 2-way splitter, which then has its one output connected to a 3 way splitter. A singular output connection runs out of the -7dB output on the 3-way and to what I assume is my gateway inside the house.

The way my amateur eyes see it, I can either:

• Leave the signal pathway as-is and upgrade both splitters to be MoCa compliant, hooking my room's coax cable to either one.
• Get rid of the 3-way splitter entirely and run everything off of the first one. Cleaner, but I'm a hesitant on this as I've heard that ISPs will use splitters in to weaken too-strong signals in a pinch. I don't know how significant that might be in my case.

Curious what you all think the cleanest solution would be, thank you.

After 3 days of crawling around in a cramped attic and winging it with a paddle bit, here we are. Still have 2 more drops to run for cameras (will be a monstrous bitch) and waiting on Ma-bell to hook me up for it to be complete. 3 years as a data guy and electrician finally paid off.

Bought the 620 to replace a Dell SFF PC that was also running OPNsense. It's got its own UPS and is also connected to a ESP32 running alos-panel to drive the LCD for lcdproc stuff (though I might reflash it because it hangs after a while). The fan is there to cool the 10G RJ45 SFP+ modules.

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right sub for this, but I wonder if my wifi setup is "safe". I hold my wifi modem (I hope thats the right word) hidden in a cabin together with the ethernet cable clustered there, and also i have extention cord where i plug in said modem and a lamp. It helps to keep everything out of sight, but I worry a little bit if there could be any issues with it (like a spark lighting a fire not that would know why there would even be a spark here).

If it is not safe, maybe someone has any advise on how I could fix it? I never go to this cabin so I don't need to be mindful of the space.

I cut this end off a cable in my house and re-terminated in the exact same order as original, but it's not working.

I went back to compare and it looks to me like T568B but...reversed? That's why I'm confused. Pin 1&2 should be white/orange and orange but the one I cut looks to be starting with brown and white/brown, and the order is backwards.

And even though I did it exactly how it was, I'm second guessing myself

Hi, I’m planning to run 2 Cat6a Ethernet cables from my living room, through the outside of the house, up to the loft and then into my gaming room.

In the gaming room, I want both cables to terminate into a double RJ45 wall socket, then I’ll use separate Cat6a Ethernet cables from the socket to my PC and another device.

I’ve put the parts I’m planning to buy in my basket. Could someone please let me know if everything I’ve chosen is compatible and will work for this setup, or if I’m missing anything?

Thanks!

I have pre-wired Internet in my apartment, but can’t seem to get my computer to work. If anyone can help me figure this out I would appreciate it. If not, it’s all good. just figured I would reach out.