Who's prefab cables?

[wybnormal]

We just had a discussion here about the merits of either making or buying patch cables... well.. gather 'round the fire for a story

I just finished a easy job.. swap out two existing 3com hubs with 2924s and certify the server cabling for the thought to be Cat5 in order to punch them up to 100 full duplex.

Cakewalk.. until I got to the cabling. Not being a trusting soul when it comes to someone else's cabling job, I tested all the server cables.. all prefab.. mostly Belkin.. maybe 2 years old? stamped Cat5.. well.. 50% failure rate on the NEXT.. and many of the remaining cables while they passed, they were very close to the margin for NEXT.. almost all failed on the middle pairs(seen this before) again.. like the connector bowed when crimped. I'm guessing that Belkin at this time used cheapo cable with marginal twists along the length of the cable. I made up several replacements and all is well.

How many of you actually test the prefabs..sample or otherwise? Whose prefabs would you recommend? The prefabs I get with my routers(cisco) test very well but almost always too short for the average job. But I keep them anyways

MikeS
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[vaoldschl]

As I love this discussion: When I first started making patch cables I caught a lot of the, "They'll never be as good as..." In a test of 10 cables, 5 store bought 5 I made, all of the same length, all 5 of my cables tested better than the best test for pre-fab.

 

[MasterRacker]

I buy mine from Cable Express who is basically reselling AESP. Never had a problem with them, but I've never tested them either. (Being that I have no problems I can point at cabling, I can't get budget for a cable tester.)

I've always advocated buying cables for other reasons, but certainly if the premades fail I would recommend making them (at least until you find a different supplier who makes ones that pass.)
Jeff
I haven't lost my mind - I know it's backed up on tape somewhere ....