Copied over from the old blog:

If you’re going to use Gigabit ethernet, buy your patch cables pre-manufactured! Please!!

You may crimp your own cables, but only if either:

1. you can crimp cables in your sleep (and, of course, you do know the T568 wiring standards, don’t you?), or
2. you have a cable certifier in your possession.

If you do not have a certifier, then bring me a beer and I will certify cables for you (two beers and I’ll certify anything).

A good friend of mine assumed his shiny new Gigabit switch was broken, and after looking at it, every single one of his patch cables were either miswired (Gigabit uses all four pairs), or had too much untwist (causing too much crosstalk).

It might just be me, but I’d usually rather have something not work at all, than work intermittently. I’d rather know I can count on it, or know that it’s unavailable. I have an intermittent printer like that. It works fine, until I really need it to. Aargh!

Don’t waste that beautiful Cat6 cable on a homemade patch cord that only lives up to Cat5 expectations. When you upgrade to Gigabit or 10GbE, you’ll regret it.