What would my Sunday be without a last-minute call?
A local business that I help out when they need a hand, calls me and explains that they've had internet performance issues since day one.
They upgraded their internet service to fibre, then their local computer guy blamed the wifi, so they put in a new wifi mesh solution, now the same computer guy is blaming their switch. My friend is getting suspicious and asked if I had a few minutes to come by and check things out and give a second opinion.
It took about 10 minutes for my network senses to start tingling ..
First red flag; no documentation
Second red flag; they have 3 wiring closets for a fairly small office with no idea what terminates to (see first point) or why there's 3 wiring closets.
Third red flag: no testing methodology; the IT reseller tells him to buy it, rip out the old gear, install it and see what happens. Rinse and repeat.
Fourth red flag: path panel cable IDs don't match the faceplates in the office or the actual cables behind the patch panel.
i started at the front desk computers (that were the source of the complaint) and showed them how to trace a cable, how to label, and some tips and tricks along the way.
I found an old 10/100 hub, yeah i said hub, that we swapped out with a gig switch.
i explained that a switch will help contain physical level errors compared to a hub.
After we traced the newly swapped switch connection back to the 'main switch' and i noticed the port was running at 100 Mbps, instead of 1 Gbps which can be related to cabling issues.
i told him that he needs to trace out all the connections from the switch to the computers to better understand where the cabling runs and if there are any more hubs on his network.
A few hours later i got an update. he found one more hub and a bunch of 'crazy cabling' that i need to see. Since its only 20 minutes from my house, i scooted over and holy cow...
There were about a half a dozen cables that were spliced like you see in the photo. some of the network cables were actually spliced to old phone cabling.
I brought my cabling tools; crimper, RJ45 connectors, toner, punch-down tool and labels. The client and his computer guy said they are familiar with how to terminate and tone cables so I left them my tools and will follow up in a few days.
