How to Make a Cat 5E Cable

Based on recent experience, there are few things more irritating than spending time diagnosing network problems to find out that it was a faulty cable. This short post is designed to act as a pinout guide for terminating Cat 5E cables.

The diagrams below show how to crimp an RJ-45 end in 568-A and 586-B configurations.  See the notes below for guidelines and tips.

Cat 5E (568-A)

568 Wiring Diagram
Pair Wire Pin
1-White & Blue White & Blue 5
Blue & White 4
2-White & Green White & Green 1
Green & White 2
3-White & Orange White & Orange 3
Orange & White 6
4-White & Brown White & Brown 7
Brown & White 8
 

Cat 5E (568-B)

 

Pair Wire Pin
1-White & Blue White & Blue 5
Blue & White 4
2-White. & Orange White & Orange 1
Orange White 2
3-White & Green White & Green 3
Green & White 6
4-White & Brown White & Brown 7
Brown & White 8
 

 

Notes:

  • 568-B wiring is the most common method for patching
  • There is no difference in connectivity between 568B and 568A cables. Either wiring should work fine on any system.
  • For a straight through cable, wire both ends identical.
  • For a crossover cable, wire one end 568A and the other end 568B.
  • Do not confuse pair numbers with pin numbers. A pair number is used for reference only (eg: 10BaseT Ethernet uses pairs 2 & 3). The pin numbers indicate actual physical locations on the plug and jack.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.