House wiring problem

Posts: 66 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:25 pm Post subject:

2 phones plugged into the TA using a splitter work fine. Both ring, sound quality is good.

Posts: 448 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:50 pm Post subject:

jimholcomb wrote:

2 phones plugged into the TA using a splitter work fine. Both ring, sound quality is good.

Then I'd say you probably do have a wiring problem. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to diagnose precisely without being able to see/touch/test the wires.

Posts: 66 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:58 pm Post subject:

I believe you're right, based on the comments here and a bit of Googling. Thanks to everyone for their help.

Jim

Posts: 448 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 8:19 pm Post subject:

It might be that somewhere inside the walls the installer improperly stapled-- and thus, shorted-- one of the cable runs (or perhaps one of the jacks is miswired). With the ample power source and somewhat forgiving nature of the local cable plant, the defect may be small enough that ordinary PSTN service worked, whereas the lesser-powered Linksys adapter chokes and pukes. (speculation, of course)

One thing I would try is go back to your NIU and separate all the conductors. Find the pair that goes to the jack used to energize the house from the TA. Now, pick a pair and connect them to the "hot" pair from the TA. Plug in a phone and check the ring. If it doesn't work, assume that could be the defective run, separate the wires again, then connect a different pair and repeat the ring test. If it still fails, then the defective cable may be the one between your TA and the NIU. Move the TA to a different jack if possible. Once you successfully get the TA and one jack ringing properly, connect another cable pair and re-test. Keep doing this until the ring test fails, whereby you will have found your defective pair (assuming that's the underlying problem).

Basically, it's the good old-fasioned process of elimination.

Posts: 66 · Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:32 am Post subject: Re: House wiring problem

jimholcomb wrote:

I disconnected the wiring from the NIU and plugged my TA into one of the jacks. 2 phones in this part of the house (a former garage turned into a rec-room) work fine. Phones in the rest of the house are dead. Moving the wire from the TA to another jack in the rest of the house doesn't "fire up" the other phones.

The wires I found in the NIU were
1) Black and White
2) Green with 3 white wires
3) Yellow and orange
4) Red with 3 blue wires.

All have been disconnected, none are touching each other.

Any ideas/help appreciated.

Jim

Final disposition:
I had twisted the Green and 3 white wires together and the Red and 3 blue wires together and this got the phones activated for outbound but inbound would not ring.

I removed the green and red wires from all the "twistings" and just twisted together the whites together and the blues together and all is well.

Jim