Hey there. I’m trying to connect the Ethernet jacks in my condo so I can use them for a home media server, gaming PC, etc. There are 4 jacks throughout the condo, in different rooms, and they all run to a small distribution board in my bedroom closet where the coaxial lines also run. There are two sets of cables in there, though: The ones that terminate in the distro board, and bare ones that I crimped ends on to yesterday. I tested the cables that I crimped ends on to and all but two of them work – I don’t have 6 jacks in my condo, so I assume one goes downstairs to the telecom room and I’m not sure where the other one goes, but neither of them show a signal when I use the cable tester.

My hope was that, with a switch added, I’d be able to distribute a connection throughout the condo, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve attached a photo of the setup, which should be easier to explain things.

I have a single Google Nest WiFi router in my living room that I’d like to use to as the router. The modem for Xfinity is there as well, and that’s the room where the coaxial is connected to.

So my main question is, why are the connections showing as active with my cable tester, but I can’t get my router to distribute a connection to any of the ports? Nothing lights up on the switch, not even my router’s line, which I know works because the tester shows it as active when the router is connected to that jack and I test the other end of the cable. Is the distribution board doing something funky?

Thanks for the help!