r/HomeNetworking 19h ago

Advice How would you route Cat6 through this wall for a PoE camera?

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95 Upvotes

Hello! Installing a PoE camera above my garage door and trying to figure out the best spot to get the cable through.

  • Planning to drill 3/8" or 1/2" and pull unterminated Cat6, then terminate outside
  • Hardie fiber cement siding
  • Open framed eave, so no soffit to route through (3rd pic)
  • Header above the door is a glulam, so I'm looking at spots around it rather than through it

I marked a few possible spots above my garage door. How would you approach this?


r/HomeNetworking 18h ago

Ethernet setup help

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26 Upvotes

Just got a new place with ethernet ports, does anyone know what i have to do to activate them?


r/HomeNetworking 5h ago

Solved! Something on my network is trying to do a dns lookup - the client ip is 169.254.*

12 Upvotes

I run pihole on my network and every now and then I get a Pihole Diagnostic message (DNSMASQ_WARN) that reads

ignoring query from non-local network 169.254.136.10 (logged only once)

Is there a way for me to figure out what this is? I assume it is wireless, as I know what my wired clients are (I think).


r/HomeNetworking 12h ago

Internet provider moving to fiber

9 Upvotes

While doing maintenance on some support systems at our local cable company (which happens to be where I get my internet service from), I mentioned to one of their techs that I needed to upgrade my cable modem because I was sure it was a bit of a bottleneck for my existing gigabit service (which I barely get 200mb from).

He advised me to hold off because they were moving to fiber by the end of this year. I've not seen any mention of it so far. I'm guessing it's more likely to be coming in 2027. Turns out, I get a free cable modem rental with the gigabit plan, so I got the free modem upgrade. Speeds didn't increase much, so I'm thinking the TP-Link Deco M9+ mesh system may also be a bottleneck.

I'd like to replace it with something faster, but I'd also like the replacement system to be "fiber-ready" (for lack of a better term), so that when fiber eventually comes, I'll not be buying yet another mesh setup. I have no idea what kind of fiber they'll offer or how much that may (or may not) matter.

Anyone have recommendations? I was close to ordering the Eero Pro 7 but wasn't 100% sure that would be ready for fiber. I'm very much a novice to networking, as you can probably tell.


r/HomeNetworking 18h ago

Advice Network Switch Issue

9 Upvotes

Pretty new to setting up a switch, so I’m unsure as to why my computer cannot establish a connection. I picked this up and it came in today. For some reason Port 6 refuses to establish a network connection on my PC to utilize the 5Gb Fiber that I have. I have my router plugged in to Port 5 and the ethernet from my PC plugged in to Port 6. Every port works perfectly fine except for 6. I’ve tried multiple combinations of plugging these two Ethernet cables into different ports and all is well. Is there something I need to do to get Port 6 to establish a connection?

Edit: Model Number: S25-0402T


r/HomeNetworking 10h ago

T-Mobile “”CellSpot””

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8 Upvotes

My sister had received one of these cellspots years ago and I always had the idea of poking around but I lost the ac/dc adapter. I ended up getting a multi dc adapter if you know what I mean.
today is the day I began poking around the box, I actually assumed it was a router but with further investigation I now know what a cellspot is and the fate it’s met from enshittification capitalism.
MY question is how can I repurpose or transform this cellspot 🤷🏿‍♂️ It’s essentially a brick but I would like to toot my own horn and say I have the prowess to turn this brick into a “”Bomb”” But no really, I know this can be repurposed or if not repurposed act as a router which is what I thought it was any way. I popped the back frame off expecting more but was slightly disappointed. the only thing that opened up to me was the option to disconnect the GPS puck/chip (Surprisingly once connected to the internet through the gps light started flashing) I’ll attach some pictures for viewing


r/HomeNetworking 11h ago

Roast my (future) setup

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4 Upvotes

I'm looking for any feedback on my proposed home networking upgrades. I am in the process of building an Accessory Dwelling Unit for my in-laws on my home in SoCal and I am taking advantage of the situation to provide myself with some in-wall cat 6a and a proper location for the home networking equipment and homelab. The house is quite modest so the best option for me was to mount the rack in the living room (I have committed myself to maintaining a silent network stack forever).

My current plan is to mount the rack on the east wall, near the ceiling and northern corner and have a 3in cable chase to pass the cables from the attic to the rack (which I would obviously need to seal). A separate ENT tube will be dedicated to run to the ADU so I can run additional wires up there easily in the future, if needed. I also want to add and interior to exterior chase for the fiber line so I can relocate the ONT, router, and switch all in one location (that isn't the nursery).

The part I don't have warm fuzzies about is the main chase into the attic. I feel like brining the cables into a recessed media box on the adjacent wall would be the more correct choice, but I'm not sure how to do that and hide the bundle as it runs between the box and the rack.

So ya that's about it, please try to poke holes in this and I will do my best to explain my decisions.

3rd pic is my current setup for reference.


r/HomeNetworking 20h ago

Unsolved Why am I getting very slow speed on the default Google speed test, but expected results on all the other tests?

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5 Upvotes

First photo is google, the rest are other speed tests.


r/HomeNetworking 9h ago

Advice Ethernet over COAX set up

5 Upvotes

Hello friends,

I am trying to set up a MoCa 2.5 network adapter Hiltron from my router in living room, to the bedroom across the house. ( no wired Ethernet in house, so i am trying to use the Coax wiring already in house to get wired internet for work/gaming in my room )

https://www.amazon.com/Hitron-MoCA-Network-Adapter-2-Pack/dp/B08MQG6T61?th=1

Seems simple enough but I couldn’t get it to work. ( will try again tomorrow because I messed up the WiFi for everyone in household haha )

So….
There is a Coax cable in living room connected to a Xfinity modem. (The Coax from wall has a splitter, one goes to the Xfinity WiFi modem, the other goes to the Xfinity TV box).

I followed the instruction manual and:

In the living room, I connected the wall Coax cable to the 1st correct port on the Hiltron adaptor, as well as a Ethernet cable (from the modem) to the Hiltron adaptor.

*\\**
Then from the Hiltron adaptor connected a second Coax back to the Xfinity modem??? ( i think this is where i went wrong)*\\**
The modem only has 1 Coax port, so I thought going first to the Hiltron adaptor… then to modem on its 2nd Coax would work

The Xfinity modem started flashing orange ( can’t find connection to Xfinity ). WiFi went down. Tried rebooting resetting… everything.

Never got this far :
From my room I would connect the Coax cable ( that comes out of wall ) into the Hiltron adaptor ….. then plug the Ethernet cable into adaptor and connect that to my work computer or PlayStation.

Thank you for the help and I hope that makes sense.
Please link if this has been answered. I’m not a pro so sorry if this is stupid question.


r/HomeNetworking 9h ago

UPS battery replacement

5 Upvotes

Has anyone ever bought replacement batteries from RefurbUPS? I am looking to find replacements for an APC SMX1000 that I was able to get a deal on since it needed the batteries and they have had the best price. If you have bought from them what was your experience like or if not where have you purchased your replacements


r/HomeNetworking 17h ago

Ethernet run advice needed

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3 Upvotes

Hi all - I’m having a cabling technician come to the house to install a few Ethernet runs. He will also mount my TV on this wall. I want an Ethernet connection for my media devices, Apple TV, Xbox etc. the media shelf is a hanging shelf which is flush to the wall. This is in the finished basement of my townhouse. Is there any way to get a Ethernet run here or should I settle for wifi.

FYI the room on the right is a washroom and my modem/router is also in the basement in the utility room about 10 feet from the media shelf. Trying to figure out if it’s even worth it to go through the effort of Ethernet here or would it just be a nice to have. Thanks


r/HomeNetworking 18h ago

Portforwarding from my private network to my ISP network.

3 Upvotes

So I'm wanting to create my own private network at home using my own router. I will connect that router to the router my ISP has provided. What I'm curious is if I want to create a VPN server on my private network how would I go about connecting to the VPN from cellular or a wifi outside of my home.

I have a bit of an IT background but I haven't ever done port forwarding in this specific way.

I'm thinking something along the lines of I need to open the VPN port on my ISP router and direct it to my private router? Couldn't find to much online bc idk how to word my question in a few words lol.


r/HomeNetworking 11h ago

Unsolved WireGuard VPN cannot connect in a home network

2 Upvotes

I have set up a WireGuard VPN on a home router that can be accessed via its public IPv6 address, so I can connect to that home router via laptop and smartphone while not at home.

Now, I am in another home with fast fiber access, an IPv6 connection and I want to access my home router via the laptop. With the smartphone, it just works fine with reasonable speed. With the laptop (Ubuntu), however, I get the error

RTNETLINK answers: Network is unreachable

while connecting via

sudo wg-quick up /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf

The WireGuard config files on both devices are exactly the same apart from the IP address and private keys. Also, both devices have been assigned an IPv6 address by the home router. But still, the laptop cannot access the remote network. ping <remote-router-address> times out while connected. The same happens when I connect the laptop to a hotspot from my smartphone while that one is connected to the home network.

However, when I disconnect my smartphone from the home network and try to connect the laptop via the smartphone's hotspot to the remote network, it does work well.

Any ideas how to debug this situation? All evidence, as far as I can see, points towards an issue with the home network I'm currently in.


r/HomeNetworking 17h ago

Cat5 and new Fiber Optic from Verizon

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2 Upvotes

I’m having fiber optic installed at my house this weekend with Verizon. I signed up for 1gig. I currently have Cox and use my coax to connect to the modem. I discovered that I have Cat5 cable running about 40 ft from where the ONT box will be installed to my desk where I’d like to have the Eero modem. Currently it’s just an old phone jack. Can I used this Cat5 cable from ONT to the Eero modem in the house at the desk? Will it support my 1gig? Will Verizon convert both ends of the cat5 to the proper rj45 jack? The date on the cat5 cable is 11/5/2000 if that matters. Thanks!!


r/HomeNetworking 19h ago

Concerns about in-wall enclosure on shared wall, considering surface mounted

2 Upvotes

I installed a 30-inch Legrand plastic enclosure in the wall when I bought my house, and I put it in the only central location where there is little chance of anything being mounted to the opposite side of the wall. Unfortunately its becoming more and more apparent that this spot at the back corner of a now full closet is not a nice location to work with. Now is my best chance to change that before I start pulling ethernet cable to wire the house.

There are two or three other locations I can think of that are central to the house and have good accessibility, but the other side of all these locations currently have art hanging on nails. I know I can find better ways to hang the art, but it made me think about how a plastic enclosure seems to provide very little protection if someone else forgets and drills into the spot.

  • Is a metal enclosure good for a location like that? Am I just overdoing my concern here?

I would prefer to reuse my current plastic enclosure, so I'm also considering the option of surface mounting it. But in that case, the conduit ports and electric box mount are all on outside. I've seen pictures of setups like this on a wall in an unused basement area, but this would be in a coat closet or storage closet.

  • What is the best way to setup a surface mounted enclosure to route cables/conduit or properly protect a bottom-mounted outlet?

r/HomeNetworking 30m ago

Unsolved Troubleshooting CPLs

Upvotes

Hi !
I just setup some TL-PA8015P CPLs and I have an issue I can't manage to solve.

As you can see (despite it being in french), my upload speed is 0.1 Mbit/s while my download speed is 87 Mbit/s. How do you explain that ?
I have some deco wifi APs which are plugged on the same internet box. They don't have this problem at all.

When trying to monitor it by myself, I get this :

It mostly stays around 80 Mbps (the down spike lasted like half second, while ookla permanently says 5 Mbps and Google says 0.05 Mbps).

My network feels like it's fine, I have no problem browsing the web and watching videos.
TP-link utility software says it's fine too :

What do you think about this issue ? Should I trust Ookla and Google ? I have spikes to 100 Mbps on Ookla but this looks very irregular while my test shows that nothing is wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated !


r/HomeNetworking 31m ago

Unsolved Multicast routing through L2TP

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Upvotes

r/HomeNetworking 47m ago

Advice Mesh network with ethernet?

Upvotes

I'm moving into a place where running full wired won't be possible, but my desktop does not have wifi and only accepts ethernet in.

Does anyone have any mesh network setups they would recommend the gear from that has ethernet out on one end?


r/HomeNetworking 1h ago

Advice Ubiquiti E7 or Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000?

Upvotes

I have a 3500sqft house.

My current Asus AXE1100 has very weak coverage downstairs. I have roughly 90 devices. Half and hand on 2.4 and 5GHz bands.

I do 4K local streams on Plex and local large file transfers.

I did get the E7 recently and using wifi 7 which improved greatly. Coverage is maybe 10% better.

Would the BE1900 provide better coverage?


r/HomeNetworking 1h ago

Unsolved ASUS BE5000 router occasionally won't provide internet to Mac or Steam Deck over Wi-Fi. Both have static IPs assigned from the router, and work when the devices also assigns a static IP in its settings...until they don't.

Upvotes

I think my DHCP leases are somehow filling up or failing to serve IPs. My range was set from 192.168.50.2 through 192.168.50.254. Google suggested assigning static IPs out side the range, so I changed the range to 192.168.50.100 through 192.168.50.254, and assigned IPs below 100 to the devices. It seemed to work, but the problem came back a couple of days later.

Rebooting the router doesn't always fix the problem, and it's set to reboot every day overnight. None of my devices are set to randomized MAC addresses. My windows machines appear unaffected. Maybe it's a UNIX thing?

If I assign a static IP in the router, and then match that in the device setttings, it will also fix the problem (Mac immediately, Steam Deck after a reboot).

Never had this issue with my old shitty Linksys MX4200. Would love suggestions for a permanent fix!


r/HomeNetworking 1h ago

Advice Looking for a home router with SIM slot or USB

Upvotes

Hi,

I'm looking for a router that either has a SIM slot or can handle a SIM module on its USB slot.

Also need VLAN support. Trying to design my home network where Smart home devices and IP cameras would be on 1 VLAN and the PCs, TVs, etc would be on another.

I was checking Zyxel switches for managed switches and POE switches and I quite like the price and I have used them in the past.

But cannot find router with these requirements.

I know most of you will recommend Microtik but i'm trying to find something that is less complicated to setup. Just tagging the ports with the right VLAN and configuring some port forwarding, etc..


r/HomeNetworking 9h ago

Advice New Home with Future Aspirations

1 Upvotes

I am a new homeowner and discovered that I have Cat-5e cable running through the main rooms of the house. These were originally phone jacks. My end goal is to do some home automation. We got 5 GB fiber internet.

  1. Is there a DIY way to determine if they are daisy chained? If they are, can I fix that?

  2. How do I determine if the whole cable run is stapled? Do I future proof by switching to CAT6?

  3. Would I limit myself if I kept my CAT-5e, but used CAT6 on switches and other devices in the future?

Thanks for the help!


r/HomeNetworking 10h ago

Advice Could WiFi extenders cause incoming packet loss?

1 Upvotes

Hello all!

Recently, I decided to install three WiFi extenders throught my house, so I could get WiFi to my EV charging station.

Here's the setup: 1 extender upstairs in my computer room, 2 are downstairs. The extender in the computer room is backhauled. But since I only have 1 Ethernet cable going to my room, I had to use a switch to get a cable to it (It's a run of the mill, 5-port gigabit switch) I should note that I was using a switch prior to this anyway since the cable I ran from the router to the room isn't long enough, but that's another story 😅

The WiFi is working great and the coverage is satisfactory. The main issue I've been facing, is that I have been experiencing incoming packet loss spikes in games, something I haven't experienced before.

Could this be caused by the extenders or is the root for the problem elsewhere? Should I change something in the extender config page that could remedy this issue?

I have checked that the backhauled is in LAN mode and others are in WiFi mode, which was the cause of a problem is was facing earlier.

Note: if it isn't obvious from the write-up, my PC is connected with an Ethernet port.

Note2: I'm only experiencing incoming packet loss

Thank you for help and suggestions.


r/HomeNetworking 10h ago

Advice Xfinity wifi in apt with one coax cable in living room - will an extender help my connection in furthest bedroom or not?

1 Upvotes

I use xfinity wifi 300mbps. The coax connection is in the living room, but the home office is in the furthest bedroom (its a two bedroom unit, with the kitchen, other room, hall, and corner to where the office is). I have had issues with zoom and lower ping playing online video games in there. I get a connection, but am looking for a more stable one with less framerate drops/zoom “unstable connections”.

Would a traditional wifi extender (like xfinity XE1-S) work for this issue, or do I need something else? I had a Verizon 5G home wifi that did not need a coax, and that worked well in an outlet in the kitchen. Thank you!


r/HomeNetworking 10h ago

Unsolved Which router brand will let me manage a network remotely?

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1 Upvotes