Agile Tortoise
Greg Pierce’s blog
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Home network
I went to hook up the free TiVo last week and discovered two things. First, you have to do the initial setup of the TiVo via a phone line. That’s kinda lame, to my mind…since as soon as you finish that, you can switch it over to the broadband connection. The setup has to download a bunch of stuff — like the full guide, and it takes a while over the phone. Not sure why they wouldn’t just detect the network and try to use it if it’s available.
Second, I discovered the network jack in our bedroom didn’t work. I had 11 LAN runs done when building this house. I already knew one got punched down as a phone instead of a LAN. I went to hook up the TiVo and couldn’t get a connection. I brought my network tools home from work and started checking the home run box.
Turns out that they terminated 6 of the 11 LAN lines wrong. The one, previously mentioned, as a phone, one just completely wrong — none of the colored wires in the right order, and the other 4 upside down. They got the colors in the right order on those, but crimped the male RJ-45 jack on upside-down. It’s amazing the that 3 we have already been using all year happened to be working.
It’s not that big a deal. Running the lines is the hard part. It only took me about 1/2 hour to re-terminate the lines, since I know how to do it and have the tools. But, that’s pretty lame for a contractor that does this for a living. I should have tested the lines, but assumed they already did. Clearly not.
We’re now live with the TiVo in the bedroom though, and multi-room viewing is way cool!
