Stop being embarrassed by your server room…get PatchBox: ntck.co/patchbox What Patchbox sent me: ➡➡ serv.linkster.co/r/e25zkf1QKq Dive into NetworkChuck's latest adventure as he tackles the chaos of his server room, transforming it from a tangled mess into an organized masterpiece with the help of Patchbox. Watch as he shares practical tips on server management, cable organization, and the importance of maintaining a clean IT environment. Whether you're a seasoned IT professional or just starting out, this video is packed with valuable insights and humor to keep you engaged. Don't miss the before-and-after transformation and learn how to avoid common server room pitfalls! 🔥🔥Join the NetworkChuck Academy!: ntck.co/NCAcademy ☕☕Need coffee? Check out NetworkChuck Coffee: networkchuck.coffee --Special thanks to intertooth for the awesome console cable: cdn.intertooth.com/en **Sponsored by Patchbox
You know kind of screws that are used for patch panel to type the you know the stuff But instead of screw they use this devil mountains it's kind of new generation screws with don't have to use screwdriver at all
Velcro straps all the way roughly you can find 100pk for usually around $5-1$10, zip ties is asking for something to go wrong, then you gotta cut them, find more, and then you have cables hanging free again. It helps we we have to pull a cable out or add new ones, undo velcro, pull, put back in. Undo velcro pull slack or loop out of service loops put them back on. I had to redo all of our racks and it definetly helps having velcro instead of zip ties in the cabinets.
A friend of mine hid a box behind our rack. he once said to me: lukas, if everything fails... If all the strings fall apart, open the box. turns out, there was JIN, wine and pure wodga, cooled from the server rooms air conditioning xD.
Fun fact for anyone who doesn't work in the industry. The thing the patch panels lead to are called data drops. Also, if you really want your cable management under control, try Panduit (or similar) cable managers. Ladder management running from one rack to the other may be helpful as well. Also, when moving a UPS, pull out the battery first. It's like 2/3rds of the UPS's weight. I would highly recommend doing all of this during a maintenance window as well.
@@nextleveljoe The whole point of a patch panel is that it keeps the solid-core in-building wiring secure and free from damage. Troubleshooting may be a bit easier directly terminating to devices but I don't want to be the one running a new cable when I could have replaced a patch cable.
Pulling the battery out of a UPS is like having a separate amp head and cabinet: great in principle, but sometimes you can't. In particular they can end up in places where it makes more sense to lift the whole thing out of its place than to attempt to remove the battery in place. It's a little like the modern trend toward cars where the engine has to be lifted or dropped to service certain parts.
New CIO did a surprise visit at a site, looked at the patch panel and fired the network guy. Within the next week, across a hundred or so offices, more unpaid network team overtime and more under the radar changes occurred than at any time in the companies history. You have never seen so many shining patch panels. Turns out the network guy has been fired for inappropriate use of a company corp card and inappropriate use of the girl from payroll in the break room.
Costs so much money it's dumb and it isn't equipment money either. Labor money costs way more than equipment money even though they're both money lol 😅 (edit) it's seriously something like for every minute you save by doing it the quick easy way, it's gonna cost you at least ten minutes to fix the right way later... So 15 quick fixes you save 15 min now and lost 3hr in 12 months from now, something like it.
Wanted to tell you to use netbox for documentation as well, but kim Beat me to it 😅 Its easy to install with docker. You can backup the database. And if you want smth to be changed in the racks you can plan it in the software before you change any hardware by labeling it as planned. That way you could also plan changes with ur team, so Alex has to move cables😂 oh, hi Alex 😊
20 years ago I worked for a telecom where I was building out server rooms, we were paid hourly so the cat5 trunks we installed were works of art. Very aesthetically pleasing.
You could buy cases of different sized (and colored) patch cables for far less than that. It's nifty, but anyone who has to deal with cabling and cabinets probably has drawers of various sized patch cables. And if not, spend the $ on stocking up on those instead. It won't take up a rack unit either.
A fully populated PATCHBOX System comes with a frame and preloaded with 24 cable cassettes. For smaller needs, you can just buy a frame, and as many cable cassettes as you need (eg: 6 blue, 3 red, 2 white, 1 green and maybe a couple fibre cassettes). Less cost if you don’t need all 24 cassettes.
@@rschraderstill far too expensive. Their cheapest frame the 365, plus 8 cassettes will cost a little over $300 USD. A patch panel and 5 10 packs of multicolor mono price slim run cat6a patch cables ranging from 0.5 to 5ft will cost you around $115 USD. Patch box is more than 2.5x the cost with less cables. It only gets worse the more blades you add.
The only way this makes sense is if you are company that needs to rearrange their server room on a regular basis, and you would have to pay an IT guy a boatload of money per hour so the time saved makes it worth it. That is a very unusual and specific scenario.
Little tip for the setup.exe one side has rubber and the other doesn't. This is intentional as it allows you to use to it to slide in equipment vs set in equipment depending on the installation style. Also, the new/current model has two different styles of those spring studs so that you can switch for the threaded racks or the cage nut style racks.
I was a network dev/analyst/grunt for 7 years before switching teams, and when I tell you that third hand dev mount device both brought back nightmare memories, and made me exceedingly jealous... That should be a grad gift for everyone when they leave an IT program, or get hired to a department. It's by far the best tech gadget I've ever seen, and I'm so sad to only learn about it now that I'm in a new tech life! Incredible!
My "3rd hand" is a bog standard $15 rack shelf. I swear people come up with this junk just to change you a fortune for it. (looky, they've turned a $1 jelly-bean patch cord into a proprietary $$$ thing.)
My home rack is IMMACULATE!!! ...and no I will absolutely not be providing photos of what it looked like before I spent 6 hours re-building it and cleaning it 2 weeks ago...
I agree. Im slightly disappointed by his treatment of her interest in all of these things. Idk weather he was hamming it up for the camera of weather he is actually dismissive of her interest in the new gear.
Hey, shoutouts to my office's IT admin, who came by my house before I got moved in, and spent a weekend with me wiring it all up together, in exchange for just a couple lunches. The whole house's tech setup is super neat and clean thanks to him and his advice and the gear he suggested. Dan is the MAN.
The place I first worked had a network closet from hell. I saw it. A coworker would often lose connectivity due some someone having to yank on a cable in there to get that extra millimeter to plug it in. It would pull other cables out. I doubt they ever fixed it as it was a rats nest of a rats nest.
Pro tip. If you are running redundant power supplies to redundant backup power use one color cable for redundant backup A and another for B. This way you don't accidentally plug both power supplies into the same backup power. Luckily this is a lesson I learned from somebody else's mistake.
I'd apply this principle also if you are getting power from different phases. Sometimes in a commercial building, one phase will go down while the other two can continue functioning, and you might want to spread the risk around accordingly. Using different color cables, or different color tape on the ends of the cables, can save a lot of hair-pulling in a critical moment.
Hi, just a heads up, with having UPS batteries, they perform at their best between 20-25c rather than chilling in their boots. I've set my server room to 20c and it feels quite chill and fresh (and no more noisy) on warm summer days. No temp alarms from anything. The patchbox and 2 x 40Gb switch look sweet. It's amazing the transformation you managed to make, massive props.
Documenting all of your server room is annoying , but SO WORTH IT. If youre ever starting a new project it is such a lifesaver. Your future you will thank you 🙏
I have a NAS server powered by a Raspberry Pi and It looks more enjoyable to set it up than your server. But either way thanks for the vid! Keep the good work!
Also to ash_tray. I have a raspberry pi 5 8gb ram running Open Media Vault attached to 20tb, and am about to to a big upgrade to 100tb that should work fine. I've had my 20tb setup for 1-2 years and it works perfect. The raspberry pi can serve up 4k videos over my network, tested with 2 different routers. Very easy to set up, and plenty of easy to follow UA-cam tutorials on OMV. If you do go this route let me know if you have any questions
I did a NAS on a pi 5 with the m2 hat. It was super easy to install open media vault. I set it up with 1TB native and s 4TB SSD plugged into one of the 3.0 USB ports. Great write speeds!
Nice job Chuck, been there, still doing that. You need to get some cable tray to go between racks and rack to wall. It will support the wires and also stabilize the racks some more. For us plebes who can't afford those posh PatchBox thingys, the newer Cat6 thin patch cables help clean up the mess a bit, especially in dense MDF's and IDF's. I keep a supply with several colors and lengths, but yea, there always seems to be a few 25 footers spanning 2 feet.
When it comes to cables, you use what you have when the need arises. Add the principle that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary hack, and that's how you get 25 foot cables between racks two feet apart.
I worked with a guy that would call the end users DEUs, which stood for dumb end user. I told management about him, and they didn't believe me. Some time after I left the company, I heard that he accidently used the term during a high level meeting. He was frog-marched out the building immediately. :)
“Those are the rails. Leave it alone”. Please let your kid mess around with the unfragile stuff. She seems very into the tech. It’s your job to embrace that interest and feed it. A child who is interested in something is a child who is engaged. A knowledge sponge. Hands on learning is the best kind of learning.
*looks over at my studio cabinet, which has a desktop, server, several raspberry pi servers, switches, and 2 wifi routers , and some cables hanging over the front * "yeah, you're totally beyond the pale Chuck....... I should really clean that up instead of watching this video....."
I reracked my servers hot a couple months ago. I find entirely too much of this video triggering. I LOVE that your daughters are interested in this! Keep up the great content!
Thank you! For shedding some light on the " real lifers " with experience! This was a perfect example of the term " you pay for what you get " the professionals will understand. Love your content!
Hi Chuck, thanks for sharing all the embarrassment. Really bold to do so. I'm kind of OCD with all stuff IT related and always keep track of information and inventory. It's a challenge, even in our small home network with growing numbers of devices, to keep track of everything. I log or document credentials, hardware revision and firmware, serial numbers and warranty. All our switches are managed, all cabling labeled and color coded. It's so much easier to find and correct faults or restore a device. The only thing I've skipped was redundancy because of cost and the simple fact it's only a home network. Best from the Netherlands.
Last semester we had networking class, and on the last week they showed us the university's server room... Well, it was a mess, way worse than yours at the beginning, so I asked: - How do you know which cable goes where? The answer was: - Well, we don't know, we see it in software...
Am I the only one who loves redoing and fixing these kind of racks? My only requirement would be that I get a maintance window, I got a couple of before and after pics from my work and my colleagues LOVE it.
HI ALEX! Chuck, they make tools to hold the keystone jacks while you're punching them down, bro! That's why I like the toolless ones, Panduit makes great toolless keystone jacks. Ethernet cassettes though, that is like the coolest thing I've seen next to the cage nut killers, dude that's huge like Godzilla huge. FINAL PRODUCT IS SOOOO AWESOME CHUCK! GOOD WORK! U did it so right it's Sic!
Interestingly, I've never seen those before. I have a tool kinda like pliers that you snap the keystone into, then put the wires in it and squeeze. Presses the wires in cuts the xtra off.
Well, I feel the pain. Recently I have changed my old-style patch panel with keystones to new one with double female ethernet ports. Had to redo all cable ends with RJ45 but now it's like a dream. I can disconnect everything in no time!
all that patbox was amazing, had to do the same thing for work and it makes life so much easier now. thank you for reminding me of my love for the third arm, life changer =] hello alex
Gotta say, I've had customer closets😢 that I was ashamed to bring peers into for side jobs because they were such a wreck, but the client wasn't willing to pay to clean it up, and I'd inherited the problem, and figured it out over time. So I wasn't giving up a weekend for free to fix something they'd been building for years. To be fair, I tried to keep anything new clean and managed, but it was truly a drop in the bucket
Use Velcro. I’m a Low Voltage Technician Apprentice, I have done jobs for the all kinds of businesses. All over the business you use Velcro because A. You don’t run the chance of nicking a cable. (Plus you don’t look like an electrician) B. You’re making it easier on the next guy which might be you. Now don’t get me wrong, zip-ties have there place like tying j-hooks to the ceiling when your doing a cable run, or hooking fiber to the NID
Hi, Alex! Welcome to the team! Chuck's a network goon to the max, y'all are all awesome and I'm glad you have a UA-cam for us all to see what you do and learn (better habits) from you!
Label your wall plate with Closet-Rack#-PatchPanel#-Port# IE MDF-2-3-24 tells you to go to your MDF on Rack 2 on the 3 patch panel port 24. Of course you can drop off the first 2 parts if you have 1 closet and 1 rack or 1 rack with patch panels. This would make it 3-23,24 being the 3rd patch ports 23 and 24. This helps you out massively because when you hook up a machine your look at the wall and know exactly which port you have to hook up.
If you plan to ever do a lot of keystones again, get the tool that punches them all down at once. You just need to lay the wires in and one squeeze and done. Or get a fixed patch panel. They're easier to punch down single wires then keystone jacks. The better fixed patch panels will have a hinge on one side so you can swing it out, punch the back, and then swing it close. That way you aren't punching from the back of the rack.
My rack was so clean and tidy when it first went in. Perfect cable management, the layout made sense...... moved a single server and spaget everywhere...
I have the worst one. Basement server room. Raised floor, but only 6 inches raised. 30 years spaghetti connections. Insert sewer backup. Before we lifted the first floor panel we knew what was going on. The sewage level was almost above the floor with waste floating by. Carefully replaced the panel, notified management, called hazmat team. None of us were willing to work on anything below knee level even after it was all replaced.
Thanks for the inspiration. I’m about to dig into a server room that I’ve been upgrading for years. Just this week I realized I can’t stand it anymore. Time to clean up.
5 місяців тому
The level of hours you put into each video (editing, production, etc.) is insane. I'm just stopping by to tell you that I love the dynamics of the channel, all of us who are in IT go through these situations. Our children know it too hahaha.
-I was the Civilian technician of a Brazilian Air Force Data Center with about 12 2 meter racks complete with about 100 Servers, several KVMs, Modems, Routers Switches. -I basically did all the racks for a year, in fact there were 7 at the beginning but other sectors were going to throw in garbage their old racks away and I took them, revitalized all in then, the electrical, ventilation and wired the network and did it. -Oh, this is a paradise comparing, imagine trying to crawl under a raised floor full of dust and rats crap and passing huge groups of network and fiber optic cables and then having them placed on the rack in the pachts and identifying everything...?!?!? -I already got screwed a lot before I was the senior Cloud engineer working from my home office that I am today.
I remember using zip ties everywhere as well. It's such an old method now since you have to cut them every time you want one wire in there. Twist ties and velcro straps are the way to go. They can be reused and last for quite some time - and are very easy to undo and redo as well.
Sr network engineer - 2x40Gb doesn't = 80Gb in a port-channel. It'll load balance, but will only ever be a max throughput of 40Gbps. I'm currently implementing Cisco ACI in hospital datacenters - each leaf has 2x100Gb uplinks, but they're L3 using vxlan under the hood. Freaking cool stuff! The leaves are 93360s and the spines are 9504s and 9508s
Its been wild road for me, been doing structured cabling for a year or so routing cables, patch panels and cat6 terminations including keystones. Now i find myself trying to get into CCNA and this video pops up!
I'm actually surprised you used a punch down tool with keystones... those are generally toolless, all we need is the snips and wirecutters to make the cuts flush because the caps generally push them down to crimp point.
Network Chuck, welcome to the club! I made a video on this some time back, and I just love. I mean, I love the PATCHBOX setup. I received some criticism, but I haven't had a clean rack like this in a long, long time. Great video, bro!
Nice work! I always sucked at cable management. I mean I could initially set something up reasonably organized at first but it always became a mess over time then the inevitable "we have to take the company down for a whole weekend to re0organize this mess" would happen. Even worse at my current job, its a 24/7 shop so there is literally NO good time to "take the network down" for a couple days. :/ before we relocated the small datacenter out of state what I had inherited was cable spaghetti nightmare!
I love the upgraded server room! This is exactly what I’d do if I found a need for one at this caliber! I would even want to go as far as taking the two connecting cables across the top and finding capable cables long enough to go down and over along the wall, behind a cable track, same color as the wall so it blends in. Nonetheless, awesome job! I know this was time consuming and at times frustrating. But well worth it!
Bless your heart *BanninkSolutions* . Its so sad how the scammers prey on the elderly and the uninformed public. Bless you and all others who fight against these crimes.Its horrible how mainstream media is not doing the right thing by shining light on these things to help the publiccc!!!
I think I remember the video where you first this room up and yes can confirm over the years so much changes and everything WILL become a mess had horrible times in serverrooms
I love the Patchbox kit, but you aren't fooling me installing the dev/mnt 'for the first time' underneath the patchbox installed using dev/mnts . dev/mnts are a game changer as long as your cabs are standard fitting size they just clip right in, no more bloody finger nails/lost nuts/struggle to hold kit whilst lining up the screw etc etc just stick em in slide your kit onto the the bolts and just screw on the nuts. So simple, so much win.
All of this is inspiration for my own cleanup. Fortunately, not too much to cleanup. Not re-racking anything as they are good where they are. I really just need to more formalize my cable runs. Left in plenty of slack, but now it's just hanging....and blocks me pulling out my racked server on its rails (can be moved though). Really in need for stronger storage and a good UPS for it all. Unfortunately, limited funds.
The point of a Patchbox is not to do short runs to a patch panel close by,, it should replace the patch panel itself! It's meant to allow you to route a cable on the side of the rack from a switch or router directly to other equipment, then retract the slack in the cassette. Also, in between the two wires where they enter the cassette, there's a clip that you have to pull on to allow the wires to move freely and be retracted; you pull on the clip to unlock, route your two ends between the cassette and the equipments, then push the clip back to lock everything in place.
That looks so much better, But dude I loved the taking the equipment off the rails... Rails are hot swappable push the locks and slide the equipment out the end, then you don't have to fight to get the pins lined backup in the rail... In the this day and time why use punch down patch panels upgrade to the keystone modular system and put RJ45's on your cables then you can move them around so much easier. Watching the video and seeing the pictures at the end gave me flashbacks for 1993 when I had to move a Prime and PD711 RS232 systems with 200 terminals had to wire the new build for RS232 the cables where 3 feet deep behind the units.. But it looks great now... Nice job.
I am in the works of doing this. My house was chaotic before. My dad did outlets behind where all my TVs/network equipment, and computer desk will be. I did 3 ports CAT6 for each spot near the outlets. He is better at electrical outlets than myself but I did help by doing all the attic work. Let's just say it's a bit of work climbing in the attic, drilling half inch holes in the top of the wall where those outlets and network cables go. You have to feed all the wires, strip them, crimp them, and test them (at least the CAT6, the outlets looked harder watching my dad ground those and wire them.) I just purchased a tracer probe kit for RJ45 cables so I can make it easier at the rack. I was not very clever like I should of been by labeling the ethernet cables to identify them (thankfully people think of these problems and have solutions). I did have 1 port not work behind my TV but it has an 8 port switch so the 2 extra ports will be fine for now. I'll go back when it's colder and rewire it, too hot right now! 🔥
I am known as the guy that gives cool but difficult project ideas, and i was thinking, Chuck, would you like replacing the led strips on your racks with addressable ones, illuminating the status of each tray? ie, on this tray, there is this server, which is online, so it glows green. when its down, green turns to red. if for some reason there is a fault, the red is flashing like an alarm. if it is under maintenance, it glows orange. something like that. I believe that you can do it with wled (esp32 based FW) or a rpi. just saying.. i think that you;d like that. i'm sure us fans will appreciate the content...
at 30:10 :: I worked in IT at a call center company with over 1000 seats in a building (one of a few on the campus), They still had Digital but not Ethernet phones, and because of requirements from the clients (big clients like a shipping company or health care insurance company customer support) we had to have most seats filled during some times of the year with non-network based telephony solutions. So each cube had 3 or 4 network connections for redundancy/backup. Because the phones were digital, they had to be directly patched into the phone system dedicated ports and those ports configured for line of business. The DC was not in the same building as the agents in some cases, so we also had cross connects between buildings. We definitely had 6-8 racks with cables strung across them from over 20 years of changes to customers agent numbers needed and adjusting which line of business was where on the floor I have photos somewhere.
17:03 Just stop saying that!! You're are not stupid! You just rushed into installing everything...😅😅😅😅 Great videos man! Like the simplicity and honesty, hey we all do mistakes and learn from it! 👍👌
25:25 I wish I could drop an image of "the hot shelter" in response. (It's basically your "before" with a LACK table as a "server rack" and cable management that sucks a butt) There's no way the hot shelter is getting cleaned up. It will never be shut as long as I'm breathing air, so it will never get cleaned.
When I did initial builds of rack wiring, it was always clean, neat, tie wrapped and labeled. Over time though. Temporary connections happened. "Temporary" somehow became more permanent, and I always would "get back to it" when I had the chance. So, I sympathize. The other thing that happened, was that I documented the initial build with design and asbuilt diagrams, with labels. The temps would only sometimes get hand written on the diagrams, of course because they were "temporary" and "didn't need to be documented." (Kidding myself of course.)
Great project, thanks for videoing and sharing. I can also understand how much better it feels in that room now that things are clean and organized. Well done!
There are holder stands for patch panel's keystones when you punch down them. And in the and you still need to reroute cables from back to front part of your network rack. Horizontal organizer with passthrough may help with this.
LoL at this video! Been there and done this. Except the patch. Out of the chute I installed a 48 port patch and all cables come back and are terminated. When first I got into structured cabling and server rooms I worked for a sub prime lender. They had about 500 people working for them at the time but we're using soho unmanaged switches and feeding their desktops with 10Mbps. The racks were a hodge podge of crap with fiber and patches running across the floors and the air. Took me months to remove and replace all the patches and cables and reroute and upgrade all the pieces. Literally 1000s of drops when I was done. Also extensive electrical upgrades in the server room as well at the same time. It was a soul sucking job fixing poor and rushed workmanship.
2:59 - "Score the sheath" - this is where often, the tool will oh so gently cut into one or two strands and leave you with 100mbit connection instead of 1gb =) 15:57 - That glossy look, haunted glossy look of someone who spent a lot of time and it started working, but not in a satisfactory way... 18:09 - Yeah, remove everything - drives, power supplies - this helps a lot
Stop being embarrassed by your server room…get PatchBox: ntck.co/patchbox
What Patchbox sent me: ➡➡ serv.linkster.co/r/e25zkf1QKq
Dive into NetworkChuck's latest adventure as he tackles the chaos of his server room, transforming it from a tangled mess into an organized masterpiece with the help of Patchbox. Watch as he shares practical tips on server management, cable organization, and the importance of maintaining a clean IT environment. Whether you're a seasoned IT professional or just starting out, this video is packed with valuable insights and humor to keep you engaged. Don't miss the before-and-after transformation and learn how to avoid common server room pitfalls!
🔥🔥Join the NetworkChuck Academy!: ntck.co/NCAcademy
☕☕Need coffee? Check out NetworkChuck Coffee: networkchuck.coffee
--Special thanks to intertooth for the awesome console cable: cdn.intertooth.com/en
**Sponsored by Patchbox
Chuck literally saving my marriage. “You see honey? If it happens to Chuck it can happen to anyone”. 😂
How about a video regarding IRP, BCP & DRP?
Do you have one?
ever heard of a patch cable?
Do you use jumbo grames one the NAS side?
@@leester9487 I do
"What's a dev mount?"
"Devil Mountain?"
Sometimes working in /dev is like climbing the devils mountain
@@SM-1010 Only if you are also attempting to climb the Ballmer Peak at the same time. Drink and code responsibly!
That contain Linux device drivers.
Kids say the most adorable and hilarious shit sometimes XD
You know kind of screws that are used for patch panel to type the you know the stuff
But instead of screw they use this devil mountains it's kind of new generation screws with don't have to use screwdriver at all
Velcro straps all the way roughly you can find 100pk for usually around $5-1$10, zip ties is asking for something to go wrong, then you gotta cut them, find more, and then you have cables hanging free again. It helps we we have to pull a cable out or add new ones, undo velcro, pull, put back in. Undo velcro pull slack or loop out of service loops put them back on. I had to redo all of our racks and it definetly helps having velcro instead of zip ties in the cabinets.
Some zip ties have a release lever.
Velcro is the way.
Make the LEDs green while everything is ok. Orange for warnings. Red for errors. Blinking red for fire. 😎
that already exists its a switch (ltt) gaming van
@@jam.bear.alldayNewer Ubiquiti UniFi switches (UniFi Switch Pro Max) has a feature called Etherlighting.
This is what I was about to comment! No need to check the monitor! lol
A friend of mine hid a box behind our rack. he once said to me: lukas, if everything fails... If all the strings fall apart, open the box. turns out, there was JIN, wine and pure wodga, cooled from the server rooms air conditioning xD.
@@papierbndc true friends are rare, you won the lottery
DUDE! The patchbox cassettes have a thing that self-retracts you don't need to force feed it back in.
Fun fact for anyone who doesn't work in the industry. The thing the patch panels lead to are called data drops. Also, if you really want your cable management under control, try Panduit (or similar) cable managers. Ladder management running from one rack to the other may be helpful as well. Also, when moving a UPS, pull out the battery first. It's like 2/3rds of the UPS's weight. I would highly recommend doing all of this during a maintenance window as well.
And use velcro cable ties so you can easily undo them if you need to replace a dead cable.
xoxoxo
I would get rid of any patch panel i could, straight runs from device to device is soooo much easier to troubleshoot when needed. I manage an ISP.
@@nextleveljoe The whole point of a patch panel is that it keeps the solid-core in-building wiring secure and free from damage. Troubleshooting may be a bit easier directly terminating to devices but I don't want to be the one running a new cable when I could have replaced a patch cable.
Pulling the battery out of a UPS is like having a separate amp head and cabinet: great in principle, but sometimes you can't. In particular they can end up in places where it makes more sense to lift the whole thing out of its place than to attempt to remove the battery in place. It's a little like the modern trend toward cars where the engine has to be lifted or dropped to service certain parts.
New CIO did a surprise visit at a site, looked at the patch panel and fired the network guy.
Within the next week, across a hundred or so offices, more unpaid network team overtime and more under the radar changes occurred than at any time in the companies history.
You have never seen so many shining patch panels.
Turns out the network guy has been fired for inappropriate use of a company corp card and inappropriate use of the girl from payroll in the break room.
> inappropriate use of the girl
🤨
If the girl was willing, then it was only inappropriate use of the break room. If she wasn't, then it's a much more serious crime.
> inappropriate use of the girl > gives the term "penetration testing" a whole different meaning.
I think we have all been there.... Pour documentation, unlabeled wires... it get out of control quick and it can cost money!
I actually use netbox at work and it’s so good
Costs so much money it's dumb and it isn't equipment money either. Labor money costs way more than equipment money even though they're both money lol 😅 (edit) it's seriously something like for every minute you save by doing it the quick easy way, it's gonna cost you at least ten minutes to fix the right way later... So 15 quick fixes you save 15 min now and lost 3hr in 12 months from now, something like it.
Wanted to tell you to use netbox for documentation as well, but kim Beat me to it 😅
Its easy to install with docker. You can backup the database. And if you want smth to be changed in the racks you can plan it in the software before you change any hardware by labeling it as planned. That way you could also plan changes with ur team, so Alex has to move cables😂 oh, hi Alex 😊
20 years ago I worked for a telecom where I was building out server rooms, we were paid hourly so the cat5 trunks we installed were works of art. Very aesthetically pleasing.
Cheapest Patchbox- £650. Lovely bits of kit, it seems, but £650 for making my 19" rack pretty is more than I am willing to pay.
You could buy cases of different sized (and colored) patch cables for far less than that. It's nifty, but anyone who has to deal with cabling and cabinets probably has drawers of various sized patch cables. And if not, spend the $ on stocking up on those instead. It won't take up a rack unit either.
A fully populated PATCHBOX System comes with a frame and preloaded with 24 cable cassettes. For smaller needs, you can just buy a frame, and as many cable cassettes as you need (eg: 6 blue, 3 red, 2 white, 1 green and maybe a couple fibre cassettes). Less cost if you don’t need all 24 cassettes.
Yeah, way too expensive. But im eyeing that 3rd hand. That would of helped me countless of times
@@rschraderstill far too expensive. Their cheapest frame the 365, plus 8 cassettes will cost a little over $300 USD. A patch panel and 5 10 packs of multicolor mono price slim run cat6a patch cables ranging from 0.5 to 5ft will cost you around $115 USD. Patch box is more than 2.5x the cost with less cables. It only gets worse the more blades you add.
The only way this makes sense is if you are company that needs to rearrange their server room on a regular basis, and you would have to pay an IT guy a boatload of money per hour so the time saved makes it worth it. That is a very unusual and specific scenario.
Little tip for the setup.exe one side has rubber and the other doesn't. This is intentional as it allows you to use to it to slide in equipment vs set in equipment depending on the installation style. Also, the new/current model has two different styles of those spring studs so that you can switch for the threaded racks or the cage nut style racks.
I was a network dev/analyst/grunt for 7 years before switching teams, and when I tell you that third hand dev mount device both brought back nightmare memories, and made me exceedingly jealous... That should be a grad gift for everyone when they leave an IT program, or get hired to a department. It's by far the best tech gadget I've ever seen, and I'm so sad to only learn about it now that I'm in a new tech life! Incredible!
My "3rd hand" is a bog standard $15 rack shelf. I swear people come up with this junk just to change you a fortune for it. (looky, they've turned a $1 jelly-bean patch cord into a proprietary $$$ thing.)
Most enterprise companies would never pay for something like this.
My home rack is IMMACULATE!!!
...and no I will absolutely not be providing photos of what it looked like before I spent 6 hours re-building it and cleaning it 2 weeks ago...
I was laughing so hard at your kid's comments. "just say no to cage nuts, daddy."
I was, too. Plus, his daughter is just a cutie pie.
I agree. Im slightly disappointed by his treatment of her interest in all of these things. Idk weather he was hamming it up for the camera of weather he is actually dismissive of her interest in the new gear.
also just a tip, instead of using zip ties, use Velcro straps, will make things a lot easier.
"Say no to cage nuts, daddy" GOLDEN!
Hey, shoutouts to my office's IT admin, who came by my house before I got moved in, and spent a weekend with me wiring it all up together, in exchange for just a couple lunches. The whole house's tech setup is super neat and clean thanks to him and his advice and the gear he suggested. Dan is the MAN.
don't be embarrassed, I've seen FAR FAR WORSE, so don't take it to heart Chuck
i hope nobody will ever see my old setup
The place I first worked had a network closet from hell. I saw it. A coworker would often lose connectivity due some someone having to yank on a cable in there to get that extra millimeter to plug it in. It would pull other cables out. I doubt they ever fixed it as it was a rats nest of a rats nest.
I can feel your struggle, I've done this work for a few customers of mine.
But every time I finish, I'm the happiest guy in the world.
Pro tip. If you are running redundant power supplies to redundant backup power use one color cable for redundant backup A and another for B.
This way you don't accidentally plug both power supplies into the same backup power. Luckily this is a lesson I learned from somebody else's mistake.
Having an A and B side powerrail to the rack helps alot
I'd apply this principle also if you are getting power from different phases. Sometimes in a commercial building, one phase will go down while the other two can continue functioning, and you might want to spread the risk around accordingly. Using different color cables, or different color tape on the ends of the cables, can save a lot of hair-pulling in a critical moment.
Hi, just a heads up, with having UPS batteries, they perform at their best between 20-25c rather than chilling in their boots. I've set my server room to 20c and it feels quite chill and fresh (and no more noisy) on warm summer days. No temp alarms from anything.
The patchbox and 2 x 40Gb switch look sweet. It's amazing the transformation you managed to make, massive props.
For next build add some velcro zip ties, much easier to just undo them and redo them where needed.
Yes ! Velcro . . lots of Velcro
I was coming here to say the same thing lol there will always be a need to add or subtract cabling. Saves your cables too
Documenting all of your server room is annoying , but SO WORTH IT. If youre ever starting a new project it is such a lifesaver. Your future you will thank you 🙏
I have a NAS server powered by a Raspberry Pi and It looks more enjoyable to set it up than your server. But either way thanks for the vid! Keep the good work!
Nice, how much storage did you end up attaching? I have a pi as well but I’m looking at some other builds
I want to build a nas server using raspberry Pi any suggestions that I should keep in mind?
Also to ash_tray. I have a raspberry pi 5 8gb ram running Open Media Vault attached to 20tb, and am about to to a big upgrade to 100tb that should work fine. I've had my 20tb setup for 1-2 years and it works perfect. The raspberry pi can serve up 4k videos over my network, tested with 2 different routers. Very easy to set up, and plenty of easy to follow UA-cam tutorials on OMV. If you do go this route let me know if you have any questions
Same here, any suggestions on how to set up a NAS server with a Raspberry Pi?
I did a NAS on a pi 5 with the m2 hat. It was super easy to install open media vault. I set it up with 1TB native and s 4TB SSD plugged into one of the 3.0 USB ports. Great write speeds!
"Just Say No To Cage Nuts Daddy" - That's a new novelty t-shirt for sure.
Having worked at a data center, I know nothing beats the feeling after finishing cable managing ugly messes lol
Nice job Chuck, been there, still doing that. You need to get some cable tray to go between racks and rack to wall. It will support the wires and also stabilize the racks some more. For us plebes who can't afford those posh PatchBox thingys, the newer Cat6 thin patch cables help clean up the mess a bit, especially in dense MDF's and IDF's. I keep a supply with several colors and lengths, but yea, there always seems to be a few 25 footers spanning 2 feet.
When it comes to cables, you use what you have when the need arises. Add the principle that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary hack, and that's how you get 25 foot cables between racks two feet apart.
The monster in the corner is the END USER we all love LMAO.
fr
I worked with a guy that would call the end users DEUs, which stood for dumb end user. I told management about him, and they didn't believe me. Some time after I left the company, I heard that he accidently used the term during a high level meeting. He was frog-marched out the building immediately. :)
@@bite-sizedshorts9635 that's a bit harsh though.
“Those are the rails. Leave it alone”. Please let your kid mess around with the unfragile stuff. She seems very into the tech. It’s your job to embrace that interest and feed it. A child who is interested in something is a child who is engaged. A knowledge sponge. Hands on learning is the best kind of learning.
I took a career in IT to professionally talk about racks, dongles, and penetration testing.
And I took a job in construction to professionally talk about calk, hard wood, and screwing butt-joints.
Both of these comments give me life at 4am😭
Hi Alex, thanks for helping Chuck Keith with that mess. I'm Brazilian and I love to see cable management transformations, "before and after".
*looks over at my studio cabinet, which has a desktop, server, several raspberry pi servers, switches, and 2 wifi routers , and some cables hanging over the front *
"yeah, you're totally beyond the pale Chuck....... I should really clean that up instead of watching this video....."
I learned years ago that the best fix for electronics or computers is to just "unplug it and plug it back in". Works like 90% of the time!!
LOL wasn't bragging to hard the rack is clean. Appreciate you looking at the network rack I built out
I reracked my servers hot a couple months ago. I find entirely too much of this video triggering. I LOVE that your daughters are interested in this! Keep up the great content!
Beautiful. Bought tears to my eyes
Thank you! For shedding some light on the " real lifers " with experience! This was a perfect example of the term " you pay for what you get " the professionals will understand. Love your content!
6:13 my childhood in a nutshell XD
"hey, mom look I am helping dad to hang shelves"
Dad: "Hold it still or get out of the way"
🤣
Hi Chuck, thanks for sharing all the embarrassment.
Really bold to do so.
I'm kind of OCD with all stuff IT related and always keep track of information and inventory. It's a challenge, even in our small home network with growing numbers of devices, to keep track of everything.
I log or document credentials, hardware revision and firmware, serial numbers and warranty.
All our switches are managed, all cabling labeled and color coded. It's so much easier to find and correct faults or restore a device.
The only thing I've skipped was redundancy because of cost and the simple fact it's only a home network.
Best from the Netherlands.
Last semester we had networking class, and on the last week they showed us the university's server room... Well, it was a mess, way worse than yours at the beginning, so I asked:
- How do you know which cable goes where?
The answer was:
- Well, we don't know, we see it in software...
Am I the only one who loves redoing and fixing these kind of racks? My only requirement would be that I get a maintance window, I got a couple of before and after pics from my work and my colleagues LOVE it.
8:11 oh look a taser 😂
lil sis was too excited about that one
HI ALEX! Chuck, they make tools to hold the keystone jacks while you're punching them down, bro! That's why I like the toolless ones, Panduit makes great toolless keystone jacks.
Ethernet cassettes though, that is like the coolest thing I've seen next to the cage nut killers, dude that's huge like Godzilla huge. FINAL PRODUCT IS SOOOO AWESOME CHUCK! GOOD WORK! U did it so right it's Sic!
Those keystones for the patch panel are easier than you made it. That "dust cover" punches the cables for you. 😉
Not all keystones do that.
Interestingly, I've never seen those before. I have a tool kinda like pliers that you snap the keystone into, then put the wires in it and squeeze. Presses the wires in cuts the xtra off.
Well, I feel the pain. Recently I have changed my old-style patch panel with keystones to new one with double female ethernet ports. Had to redo all cable ends with RJ45 but now it's like a dream. I can disconnect everything in no time!
I'm 57, Grandpa. You're doing a fine job, @Network Chuck. At least, I think so. That subtle humility you have is... guard it well, brother.
Cable management is awesome!
This was my life for 10 years, I understand all your frustrations so well. I was like Déjà Vu watching this...
You're the best IT youtuber
Wow! That Patchbox is genius and so simple!
this is "THE CONTENT"
all that patbox was amazing, had to do the same thing for work and it makes life so much easier now. thank you for reminding me of my love for the third arm, life changer =]
hello alex
Let me tell you something about tech right, reboot. Just...reboot
Gotta say, I've had customer closets😢 that I was ashamed to bring peers into for side jobs because they were such a wreck, but the client wasn't willing to pay to clean it up, and I'd inherited the problem, and figured it out over time. So I wasn't giving up a weekend for free to fix something they'd been building for years.
To be fair, I tried to keep anything new clean and managed, but it was truly a drop in the bucket
Use Velcro. I’m a Low Voltage Technician Apprentice, I have done jobs for the all kinds of businesses. All over the business you use Velcro because A. You don’t run the chance of nicking a cable. (Plus you don’t look like an electrician) B. You’re making it easier on the next guy which might be you. Now don’t get me wrong, zip-ties have there place like tying j-hooks to the ceiling when your doing a cable run, or hooking fiber to the NID
Hi, Alex! Welcome to the team! Chuck's a network goon to the max, y'all are all awesome and I'm glad you have a UA-cam for us all to see what you do and learn (better habits) from you!
Label your wall plate with
Closet-Rack#-PatchPanel#-Port#
IE MDF-2-3-24 tells you to go to your MDF on Rack 2 on the 3 patch panel port 24.
Of course you can drop off the first 2 parts if you have 1 closet and 1 rack or 1 rack with patch panels. This would make it 3-23,24 being the 3rd patch ports 23 and 24. This helps you out massively because when you hook up a machine your look at the wall and know exactly which port you have to hook up.
OMG Chuck, what an amazing achievement! Congratulations on your new, neat and clean server room. Hard labor pays off! Very well done sir 👍.
Did you know that the 3rd arm can be flipped so it could be used as a makeshift shelf to hold a laptop
If you plan to ever do a lot of keystones again, get the tool that punches them all down at once. You just need to lay the wires in and one squeeze and done. Or get a fixed patch panel. They're easier to punch down single wires then keystone jacks. The better fixed patch panels will have a hinge on one side so you can swing it out, punch the back, and then swing it close. That way you aren't punching from the back of the rack.
My rack was so clean and tidy when it first went in. Perfect cable management, the layout made sense...... moved a single server and spaget everywhere...
I have the worst one. Basement server room. Raised floor, but only 6 inches raised. 30 years spaghetti connections. Insert sewer backup. Before we lifted the first floor panel we knew what was going on. The sewage level was almost above the floor with waste floating by. Carefully replaced the panel, notified management, called hazmat team. None of us were willing to work on anything below knee level even after it was all replaced.
Thanks for the inspiration. I’m about to dig into a server room that I’ve been upgrading for years. Just this week I realized I can’t stand it anymore. Time to clean up.
The level of hours you put into each video (editing, production, etc.) is insane. I'm just stopping by to tell you that I love the dynamics of the channel, all of us who are in IT go through these situations. Our children know it too hahaha.
-I was the Civilian technician of a Brazilian Air Force Data Center with about 12 2 meter racks complete with about 100 Servers, several KVMs, Modems, Routers Switches.
-I basically did all the racks for a year, in fact there were 7 at the beginning but other sectors were going to throw in garbage their old racks away and I took them, revitalized all in then, the electrical, ventilation and wired the network and did it.
-Oh, this is a paradise comparing, imagine trying to crawl under a raised floor full of dust and rats crap and passing huge groups of network and fiber optic cables and then having them placed on the rack in the pachts and identifying everything...?!?!?
-I already got screwed a lot before I was the senior Cloud engineer working from my home office that I am today.
Your daughter was hilarious. Get ready viewers. Great that you have your little in the it biz so young. Good dad!🎉
/dev/mount kits are amazing and worth it! I won't use traditional cage nuts any more if I can avoid it.
I remember using zip ties everywhere as well. It's such an old method now since you have to cut them every time you want one wire in there. Twist ties and velcro straps are the way to go. They can be reused and last for quite some time - and are very easy to undo and redo as well.
Sr network engineer - 2x40Gb doesn't = 80Gb in a port-channel. It'll load balance, but will only ever be a max throughput of 40Gbps.
I'm currently implementing Cisco ACI in hospital datacenters - each leaf has 2x100Gb uplinks, but they're L3 using vxlan under the hood. Freaking cool stuff!
The leaves are 93360s and the spines are 9504s and 9508s
Your daughters jump into "it's so shine-ay" made me involuntarily finish the song.
Sincerely,
Another networking dad
Its been wild road for me, been doing structured cabling for a year or so routing cables, patch panels and cat6 terminations including keystones. Now i find myself trying to get into CCNA and this video pops up!
That zip tie has teeth, it's going to get you! @25:17 lol
At my first IT job I helped remove coaxial thin net cables... this was in 2013
No they weren't in use, just abandoned in place.
I'm actually surprised you used a punch down tool with keystones... those are generally toolless, all we need is the snips and wirecutters to make the cuts flush because the caps generally push them down to crimp point.
Network Chuck, welcome to the club! I made a video on this some time back, and I just love. I mean, I love the PATCHBOX setup. I received some criticism, but I haven't had a clean rack like this in a long, long time. Great video, bro!
Nice work! I always sucked at cable management. I mean I could initially set something up reasonably organized at first but it always became a mess over time then the inevitable "we have to take the company down for a whole weekend to re0organize this mess" would happen. Even worse at my current job, its a 24/7 shop so there is literally NO good time to "take the network down" for a couple days. :/ before we relocated the small datacenter out of state what I had inherited was cable spaghetti nightmare!
I love the upgraded server room! This is exactly what I’d do if I found a need for one at this caliber! I would even want to go as far as taking the two connecting cables across the top and finding capable cables long enough to go down and over along the wall, behind a cable track, same color as the wall so it blends in. Nonetheless, awesome job! I know this was time consuming and at times frustrating. But well worth it!
Bless your heart *BanninkSolutions* . Its so sad how the scammers prey on the elderly and the uninformed public. Bless you and all others who fight against these crimes.Its horrible how mainstream media is not doing the right thing by shining light on these things to help the publiccc!!!
I think I remember the video where you first this room up and yes can confirm over the years so much changes and everything WILL become a mess had horrible times in serverrooms
I love the Patchbox kit, but you aren't fooling me installing the dev/mnt 'for the first time' underneath the patchbox installed using dev/mnts . dev/mnts are a game changer as long as your cabs are standard fitting size they just clip right in, no more bloody finger nails/lost nuts/struggle to hold kit whilst lining up the screw etc etc just stick em in slide your kit onto the the bolts and just screw on the nuts. So simple, so much win.
Hey Alex, keep pushing boundaries. Remember, it is always better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for forgiveness ask for permission. 😎
All of this is inspiration for my own cleanup. Fortunately, not too much to cleanup. Not re-racking anything as they are good where they are. I really just need to more formalize my cable runs. Left in plenty of slack, but now it's just hanging....and blocks me pulling out my racked server on its rails (can be moved though).
Really in need for stronger storage and a good UPS for it all. Unfortunately, limited funds.
The point of a Patchbox is not to do short runs to a patch panel close by,, it should replace the patch panel itself! It's meant to allow you to route a cable on the side of the rack from a switch or router directly to other equipment, then retract the slack in the cassette.
Also, in between the two wires where they enter the cassette, there's a clip that you have to pull on to allow the wires to move freely and be retracted; you pull on the clip to unlock, route your two ends between the cassette and the equipments, then push the clip back to lock everything in place.
"I mean, I can see that's Fortinet. That's stressful man" ~Chuck
1000% agree. Having to use Fortinet is stressful.
That looks so much better, But dude I loved the taking the equipment off the rails... Rails are hot swappable push the locks and slide the equipment out the end, then you don't have to fight to get the pins lined backup in the rail... In the this day and time why use punch down patch panels upgrade to the keystone modular system and put RJ45's on your cables then you can move them around so much easier. Watching the video and seeing the pictures at the end gave me flashbacks for 1993 when I had to move a Prime and PD711 RS232 systems with 200 terminals had to wire the new build for RS232 the cables where 3 feet deep behind the units.. But it looks great now... Nice job.
I am in the works of doing this. My house was chaotic before. My dad did outlets behind where all my TVs/network equipment, and computer desk will be. I did 3 ports CAT6 for each spot near the outlets. He is better at electrical outlets than myself but I did help by doing all the attic work.
Let's just say it's a bit of work climbing in the attic, drilling half inch holes in the top of the wall where those outlets and network cables go. You have to feed all the wires, strip them, crimp them, and test them (at least the CAT6, the outlets looked harder watching my dad ground those and wire them.)
I just purchased a tracer probe kit for RJ45 cables so I can make it easier at the rack. I was not very clever like I should of been by labeling the ethernet cables to identify them (thankfully people think of these problems and have solutions).
I did have 1 port not work behind my TV but it has an 8 port switch so the 2 extra ports will be fine for now. I'll go back when it's colder and rewire it, too hot right now! 🔥
As a licenced cabler Chuck, I have definitely seen worse mate 👍
But that Patchbox looks like a nice piece of kit !
I am known as the guy that gives cool but difficult project ideas, and i was thinking, Chuck, would you like replacing the led strips on your racks with addressable ones, illuminating the status of each tray? ie, on this tray, there is this server, which is online, so it glows green. when its down, green turns to red. if for some reason there is a fault, the red is flashing like an alarm. if it is under maintenance, it glows orange. something like that.
I believe that you can do it with wled (esp32 based FW) or a rpi.
just saying.. i think that you;d like that. i'm sure us fans will appreciate the content...
at 30:10 :: I worked in IT at a call center company with over 1000 seats in a building (one of a few on the campus), They still had Digital but not Ethernet phones, and because of requirements from the clients (big clients like a shipping company or health care insurance company customer support) we had to have most seats filled during some times of the year with non-network based telephony solutions. So each cube had 3 or 4 network connections for redundancy/backup. Because the phones were digital, they had to be directly patched into the phone system dedicated ports and those ports configured for line of business. The DC was not in the same building as the agents in some cases, so we also had cross connects between buildings. We definitely had 6-8 racks with cables strung across them from over 20 years of changes to customers agent numbers needed and adjusting which line of business was where on the floor
I have photos somewhere.
17:03
Just stop saying that!! You're are not stupid! You just rushed into installing everything...😅😅😅😅
Great videos man! Like the simplicity and honesty, hey we all do mistakes and learn from it! 👍👌
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the help
25:25 I wish I could drop an image of "the hot shelter" in response. (It's basically your "before" with a LACK table as a "server rack" and cable management that sucks a butt)
There's no way the hot shelter is getting cleaned up. It will never be shut as long as I'm breathing air, so it will never get cleaned.
When I did initial builds of rack wiring, it was always clean, neat, tie wrapped and labeled. Over time though. Temporary connections happened. "Temporary" somehow became more permanent, and I always would "get back to it" when I had the chance. So, I sympathize. The other thing that happened, was that I documented the initial build with design and asbuilt diagrams, with labels. The temps would only sometimes get hand written on the diagrams, of course because they were "temporary" and "didn't need to be documented." (Kidding myself of course.)
Great project, thanks for videoing and sharing. I can also understand how much better it feels in that room now that things are clean and organized. Well done!
There are holder stands for patch panel's keystones when you punch down them.
And in the and you still need to reroute cables from back to front part of your network rack. Horizontal organizer with passthrough may help with this.
LoL at this video! Been there and done this. Except the patch. Out of the chute I installed a 48 port patch and all cables come back and are terminated. When first I got into structured cabling and server rooms I worked for a sub prime lender. They had about 500 people working for them at the time but we're using soho unmanaged switches and feeding their desktops with 10Mbps. The racks were a hodge podge of crap with fiber and patches running across the floors and the air. Took me months to remove and replace all the patches and cables and reroute and upgrade all the pieces. Literally 1000s of drops when I was done. Also extensive electrical upgrades in the server room as well at the same time. It was a soul sucking job fixing poor and rushed workmanship.
My ocd as an ex server tech kicked in looking at your servers 😅 now it looks amazing and so clean.
The expensive solution is to use switches as fabric extenders instead of patch panels. Love working in a data center that doesn't have patch panels.
I found a cage nut install tool at a side gig back 25 years, I still have that tool still to this day.
2:59 - "Score the sheath" - this is where often, the tool will oh so gently cut into one or two strands and leave you with 100mbit connection instead of 1gb =)
15:57 - That glossy look, haunted glossy look of someone who spent a lot of time and it started working, but not in a satisfactory way...
18:09 - Yeah, remove everything - drives, power supplies - this helps a lot