House wiring problem

Posts: 66 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:09 pm Post subject: House wiring problem

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

Posts: 244 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:37 pm Post subject:

Sounds like you either dont have enough power coming out of your router/ata or either you have 2 physical wiring routes. It may be hard to figure out.

Posts: 448 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:38 pm Post subject:

This is an off-hand guess, but.... your colors probably pair up more like:

Black/Yellow
Green/Red
Orange/white-with-orange-stripe
Blue/white-with-blue-stripe
Blue/white-with-blue-stripe
Blue/white-with-blue-stripe

Follow each conductor down to where they emerge from the cable sheathing, and you'll probably see this is the case.

In typical household phone wiring the tip/ring pairs are (in an old 2-pair cable) green/red and black/yellow, and (in newer 4-pair cable) blue/white-blue, orange/white-orange, green/white-green, brown/white-brown. Lines 1, 2, 3, 4 correspond with blue, orange, green, brown.

What's probably happened is, when you opened the connection in the NIU to disconnect POTS, you broke the connection among jacks in the house which probably terminate at the NIU rather than being connected to each other by one long run of cable.

With your POTS line *disconnected* at the NIU, try connecting the green and all blue-white wires together; then connect the red and all solid-blue wires together. Now test your jacks and see if they are active. If one of the jacks remains dead, connect the orange-white wire to the bundle of blue-whites, and the solid-orange to the bundle of solid-blues.

Posts: 66 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:55 pm Post subject:

Yes, my wires are paired as you describe, I was describing how they were connected at the posts.

I did as you suggested and the jacks work now. However, the phones won't ring when I get a call (one does chirp briefly).

Reading some other posts leads me to think I need Vonage to increase the ring level on my TA. On hold for support now.

Thanks,
Jim
[/b]

Posts: 244 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 3:09 pm Post subject:

Yep, call Vonage and have them increase the ring Voltage.

Posts: 66 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 6:18 pm Post subject:

Spoke to tech support, ring voltage is set as high as it goes. The one phone now chirps louder, but none of the other phones ring.

The tech says it's a wiring problem - any other ideas out there?

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 9:21 am Post subject:

did you ever add up the ren's on the phones?

Posts: 66 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 10:06 am Post subject:

Is it possible the house may have had two pots line at some point? Do you have any wires at the network interface not connected to anything?

Posts: 66 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:11 pm Post subject:

Number of rens: I never added up the ren's as I unplugged all the phones except one and still had the problem.

2nd POTS line: I did have a second line a few years back and dropped it when I got RoadRunner. My NIU looks like it's an old thing, just 4 terminals with screws holding the wiring. I removed all the wires from the posts and then connected the red and blue wires together, then the green and white-blue wires together.

I'm wondering if I should connect the orange wires as in Rebus's post earlier?

Jim[/quote]

Posts: 448 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:18 pm Post subject:

jimholcomb wrote:

I'm wondering if I should connect the orange wires as in Rebus's post earlier?

The orange/orange-white pair would ("should") have been for line 2. If anything, that will probably activate the jack that used to be for your 2nd line.

Have you plugged one of your phones directly into the TA and checked the ring, to rule out a bad adapter port?