Socket and see (Maplin Mini Lan Tester)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Maplin Mini Lan Tester
Date:	10/10/08 (226 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonably inexpensive ; easy to use ; flexible

Disadvantages: None that I can think of

Those of you who have been reading my reviews of various pieces of computer network equipment will probably have gathered by now that I retain a deep suspicion about wireless networks. OK, they're very convenient but at the same time, broadcasting to the ether your most private information, even if encrypted, does not appeal to me in the least.

I do have a wireless broadband router, it's true. I have reviewed it here on Dooyoo and my daughter uses it's signal when she's home. That's only because she has damaged the Ethernet network port on her laptop though. At all other times it's turned off. When it's on the signal is encrypted with a 32 character WPA2 access key.

The dangers of wireless networking were brought home to me even more when recently we visited my in-laws. My father-in-law was introduced to the joys of computing in his seventies. It just shows, you're never to old to learn something new. My brother-in-law got him an old computer from where he used to work, that was due to be thrown out. He's never looked back. He's taken to it like a duck to water. He's even on Facebook!

He has a broadband Internet connection and, of course, a broadband ADSL router to connect to his computer. It sits right beside it, connected by a network cable to one of the Ethernet ports on the back. It also is wireless enabled but he doesn't use it or need it.

Recently the family bought him a newer, faster computer for his eightieth birthday. He was complaining about problems with the Internet connection so I checked it out for him. Whilst doing so I discovered that the router had the wireless facility switched on (even though he wasn't using it) and that it was broadcasting an unencrypted signal!

It appears that the router is configured like this as delivered! How long it had been like this I cannot imagine but I dread to thing who might have been piggy-backing on his connection or, more disturbingly, poking around on his hard drive! I promptly switched the wireless connection off.

So you can see, wherever possible my preference is for a wired network connection. Not only is it infinitely more secure, it's also faster, even with the increasing speeds being delivered by the newer standards of wireless networking. Of course, ultimately the speed of connection you get is determined by the speed of the broadband connection delivered by your Internet provider (ISP). However, this does not affect the speed that data moves around your home network, especially when you are carrying out data intensive tasks such as backing up your data to another machine.

We have a reasonably new house which, like most these days, has hollow timber frame internal walls. This makes it much easier to install cabling. I have now done so all around the house and currently there are network ports in four rooms plus the hall, where they all terminate beside the cable modem and the broadband router. The lounge has three ports all to itself, two for computers and one for a media centre by the TV.

This is a lot of cabling and also a lot of wall-mounted network ports. It all has to route through a network switch so there are loads of fly leads as well. A lot of places where things can go wrong. The problem is finding out where the problems are when they happen, and they will happen, no matter how careful you are.

Ethernet network cable is a bit like a fat telephone cable. The main differences are that a telephone cable only has six wires and is unshielded where an Ethernet cable has eight and is shielded from electrical interference. The individual wires are in pairs and each pair is twisted together to further reduce the possibility of interference. However, just like a telephone cable, each wire can be important (in some set-ups not all are used) and if they are not all connected and also connected up correctly, the cable simply will not work.

But how to tell?

This is where a LAN tester comes in. I was looking for something reasonably inexpensive but that would do the job I needed. I found one in Maplins for just under £15. It's called the Mini LAN Tester, and mini it is. Very effective it is as well.

The Mini LAN Tester is about the size of a small mobile phone but a bit fatter. It comes in a very neat zipped leatherette case to protect it. It uses a small 12V battery. The body appears to be solid but in fact it is actually in two pieces. The smaller top part slides off of the main body. The reason for this becomes evident when you see that each part has a network port built into it.

You attach each part to either end of the connection that you are testing, be that a cable or an installed network link. Of course, if you are testing an installed link then you will have to attach a fly lead to each socket so that you can connect them to the tester. But first you should test the fly leads!

The smaller section just has a row of LEDs, one for each wire. The larger section is the controller and, in addition to the eight LEDs it has others that indicate if there is a short in the link (two wires shorting out to each other), whether the link is a straight-through or a cross-over connection and if there is no connection at all. There's also a power light to show if you've remembered to insert the battery!

On the side there's a slider switch to power off the device and to switch it on with or without sound beeps. On the front, beside the LEDs is a big TEST button. Connect the wires to each port, press the TEST button and watch the LEDs light up. It's as simple as that.

Each wire is tested in turn and in the end all the LEDs light up, or at least they do if everything is working OK. If not then there will be LEDs not lit and that will indicate that you have a problem and which wire is not connected properly. The one thing it doesn't tell you, and I know of no way that it could, is which end of the connection is the problem. To find that out you just have to check.

With all the network cabling I've been using I've found this device worth it's weight in gold. I've even found that it can be used for other types of cable. The network plug at the end of the cable is called RJ45. It's a bit like the phone plug you find at the end of US telephone cables. These are the ones that usually come with most modems, together with an adapter to enable them to be used with BT phone sockets (Trust BT not to use an already established standard!). These are called RJ11. The difference is that the RJ45 is slightly wider than an RJ11, in order to accommodate the extra wires and their connector pins. However, they are the same thickness and use the same type of locking pin.

If you want to test a phone cable of this sort then you can. It will fit the network port but, of course, only LEDs 3 to 6 will light up if it's a four wire cable or 4 and 5 if it's a two wire cable (as used for Fax machines). It will even test RJ12 cables, which are the same as RJ11 but have six wires instead of four, and LEDs 2 to 7 will be used. This was a godsend when I recently installed my new all-in-one printer. It's status panel kept insisting that it wasn't connected to the phone socket when I knew very well it was. The tester proved that there was nothing wrong with the connecting cables.

If you do network cabling, either as a DIY job or as a living then I can definitely recommend this little gizmo. It will save a whole load of potential grief.

Summary: A very useful tool for testing that networks are correctly wired up

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