How are you fine people validating wired networks? When Luxul did a training session, they referred to a few programs that require two computers and since all of my computers except one cacked recently, it would be hard to use these. I do have a spare router and was planning to connect it to each cable, check the connection speed and ping the router, checking for excessive delays and packets lost. I also use Inssider and they have some new utilities, which can perform several useful functions. Time Warner hasn't brought the cable in yet, so I can't connect to the internet to test connection speed.

Are you using a tester that stores the info for each line, then printing the results, or have you found a need to do it that way?

Thanks.

 Is this for LAN or WAN?
Resi or commercial?
Validation or certification?
For your eyes only, or printed certificate for the client?

Using 2 computers is like aiming DTV dish at a satellite. It can be done and will give you some information, but it's not a professional solutions and depending on PC's configuration and many other factors, the data can be worthless.

Like Mario said, there are a lot of differences between validation/qualification and certification.

For what we do, residential and light commercial, we only need to qualify our work and use the Fluke CableIQ. This is a great unit and has paid for itself MANY times over. [Link: flukenetworks.com]

This is Fluke's site for how to select one of their products and might help explain some of the features available.

Can you give some specific examples of how it has paid for itself?

I believe you, I'm just trying to convince our guys to pony up for one and specific stories always help with that.

Hey Jim, in a word "time."
-troubleshooting time
-hassle time
-finger pointing (from service provider, from customer's IT guy, etc.) time
-I could be making the company money instead of fooling with pinouts time
-I only have a pair tester but my data is slow (and how do I fix) time
-preloading labor to trim phase instead of final install phase time
-etc. etc.

We qualify every jack at our trimout to make sure they work. Cable IQ shows speed (10/100/1000), shorts, opens (and at which end-so you only have to troubleshoot/fix the correct end-hopefully NOT behind the 1000 pound king-sized bed, 568a/568b mis-wires (very common) and wire length, among other things.

On installed systems it can also port blink on a switch- insanely helpful trying to find wires already landed on a switch and show data flow and on which wires.

One key for us is to test at trimout so we don't have to move that master bed. We trim the keystone at the jack and at the main rack location at trim. Very time saving. We can also fix problems (including drywall damaging ones if necessary early in the project). You don't have enough time to do final install in most cases anyway-why do your network testing and fixing then?

Also, we can hand a wired network off to an IT guy knowing that our wires are not at fault, 'cause you know the first thing they'll say is "must be the wiremunky's problem."

I had a job where the cable TV installer (providing the modem) told the customer, "it must be the wire, have your munky run a new one and I'll come back later." I was onsite, swept the wire in front of him and the customer (which was good) and walked away from it.

Another example: we installed a wireless Apple TV in a retrofit job and the first thing the customer did was push "buy" on 5 or 6 seasons of different shows (one of which was 24, so that alone was 24 hours of HD video download. Of course it didn't work. We found an unused phone wire (3 pair cat3) behind the cabinet and through a series of splices throughout the house managed to get the signal back to the router. But would it work? We tested the cable and managed to get a qualified 10BaseT signal, plenty for Apple TV.

Troubleshooting-wise, it allows us to easily discount the most basic problem (the wire) quickly and easily so we can move onto other potential issues. How many times would you swear the wire is good and go on to spend hours looking for something else and come to find out you had a single conductor open at the keystone?

Whew, sermon over.

One day I stopped by a big home going in. I went in to say hello to the GC and offer our services...
As I looked around on my way to find the GC I noticed the electrician had started pulling some cat 5...
...He was pinching the hell out of the wire with Romex staples (nails) everywhere, and sharp 90 degree turns etc.
The GC came over to me and I introduced myself. I hinted that the way the cat 5 was being laid in would not pass certification. I then asked if the electrician was going to certify the network?

This was all new to him, and to make a long story short we ended up getting the low voltage part of the job!!!

...And yep, we certified everything, and did a few other big homes for the builder...

It's an old auto service garage that's being converted to an office for a graphic/web design company. They don't have anything special now and for WiFi, it's just their Airport Extreme. They have a large switch, but the IT guy hasn't gotten back to me with the details of it re: speed, managed/un-managed, number of ports, etc. I was asking about validation- they said speed isn't much of a huge requirement since they aren't having problems at this point although, ironically, the partner I know had a problem accessing a website while we were on the phone yesterday. I needed go there today, so I toned all of the cables and checked the length with my TDR- everything was OK but we still need to decide how they'll be terminated at the head end. Once that's done, I can test further.

It's for the LAN- the WAN hasn't been brought it, as I posted.

The programs mentioned by the Luxul trainer is specifically for testing network speed, throughput, etc. I'll look into it ASAP.

I'll give them a document stating the results of the test, signed and dated. That way, I don't have to deal with anyone saying "It never worked".

I installed the cabling and didn't staple anything to the studs- any staples I used were for attaching the cables to, I have no extremely tight bends, I never pulled hard on anything and didn't pinch, crush, pound on or damage the cabling in any way. The drywallers, OTOH, snagged cables in two boxes, but not far enough inside to cause a problem with me terminating them. They tested OK- no shorts or opens.