Question 1

does this check the wall jack? If not can you tell me a product that does?

Accepted Answer

Yes it can.

First test 2 short cables to confirm they are good and working.

Then place these in the female sockets of each device.  These are now referred to as "Pig Tails".  Plug one pig tail into the wall socket and one into the patch panel.  It will then test then entire circuit.

This is a very basic unit only really capable of testing "Is it wired right".

A MUCH better box and a much more expensive solution is the ByteBrothers Cat 6 Real World Certifier.  It does everything this does plus tests for throughput, kinks, and noise on the cable.

Question 2

If I wired the green pair next to each other and blue pair next to each other (on a striaght through cable) would this correctly pick it up as an error? I learned the hard way that this is a problem on long cable runs.

Accepted Answer

The tester is pretty basic.  On the tester itself the top left side port sends low voltage power over the individual wires that comprise the cable.  You have an option to hook the other end of your cable directly back to the tester's right side port assuming both ends of the cable are accessible at one location.  If not, you hook-up one end to the top left side and hook the remote receiver to the other end of the cable (presumably in a different room).

The top row of lights on the tester indicate what wire is currently being "tested" or having voltage sent over it.  Ideally, the same number light will light-up either in the bottom row of the tester or on the remote receiver.  If no light appears you either have a bad connection or a break in the wire.  If a different numbered light appears you have mixed up the wires, and if multiple lights appear you have a short or touching wires.

To answer your question, yes it will indicate there is an issue, but you have to interpret/identify it.

I love this tester.  It doesn't have any bells or whistles (literally), but it's simplistic approach is perfect for verifying connectivity all the way through.  It also comes with an RG45 to BNC connector which you can use to adapt to almost any kind of wire.  I've used this tester to verify RG6 coax and RCA cable connections.  Great product.

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