Ok, I thought buying an ethernet cable (or two) would be easy but of course not. There's different letters and numbers and Mhz and fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuukkk.

I just want (for now) a 3 to 5 foot cable to go from my Cable Modem to my PC. I am currently at 200Mbs on my cable modem (if that matters) and may be increasing to 1GIG (actually I think 980Mbs or something like that but it's called 1Gbs speed).

Can someone please help me? Finding ethernet cables at Newegg is easy.... knowing which to purchase is too I suppose for most people.... just not for me. Thanks for any help.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=ethernet+cable&ignorear=0&N=100158116&isNodeId=1

NOTE: This is the page that came up at Newegg when I put in the search engine the words "Ethernet Cable" That's all I put in there. No mention of any numbers, letters, or anything. But you see all sorts of "AWG" numbers (which I figured out is thickness... the lower the AWG the thicker and less prone to breakage the wire... if I figured that out right). Then there's Cat numbers. Cat 5 Cat 6, Cat 7, Cat 6A. And there's Mhz... 500, 550 and 600 are what I've seen so far..... Oh, and there seems to be something about SSTP and UTP as well. Dammit I thought ethernet cable was ethernet cable. Why does everything have to be so friggin' hard?

I'm no expert but some quick reading says CAT5e should be fine. CAT6 for a few bucks more and maybe some future-proofing when your local speeds go even higher.

I suspect a lot of claims above those standards are mostly hype. CAT5e and 6 ARE standards, so one meeting 5e shouldn't be much better or worse than another meeting the same standard.

Oh wow I didn't mean for you to also do the google/read game LOL. I just thought someone here would know. (It seems there is usually someone here who knows a lot of this stuff). Thanks though.

Yeah I've been doing some too and that's how I figured out the AWG numbers. But man I just really thought if anything computer wise was going to be easy it would be buying a damned cable but nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I'm convinced now that this really will be my last computer build even if I live longer than expected. I'm so tired of this that buying a console if I do need anything is probably the way I will go.

I was sitting at the airport waiting to board my last leg on the trip home, so it helped paass the time. And I accidentally learned a couple things. ; )

I used to play the expensive cable game, but a lot of specs are theoretical lab-condition numbers. Real world, I bet any half-decent cable - especially the short length you're talking about - will be fine for gig speed.

for an average "home user" CAT5E is perfectly fine for gamers they recomend 6E due to the "prolonged data transfer"

Which sould I use?

Thank you very much. I'm now going to buy one and be done with it. Don't understand why that didn't come up in my searches because IIRC one of the searches I did was literally "Which ethernet cable should I use?" Oh well, I've always sucked at searches.

Anyway, thanks again. Putting a wire in my cart and checking out right now.

ADDED: Got this one.

OOPS... LOL... I mean this one. I noticed that this one was just $0.49 more and was 6 foot instead of 3 just in case I had any issues when I set my new rig up on my desk reaching the cable modem.

First think about how long cable you need, and then get the cheapest one for the desired length.

I have never seen a cable that wouldn't work (as long as it's not physically broken), and I even did some minor IT kind of support thing with many computers a while back.

If you find a cable that doesn't work for you, it's an incredibly unlikely thing to happen, or then there are some very strange surroundings where you attempt to use it (lots of interference or whatever).

Is that true even for something like my case where both the desktop and the cable modem are sitting on the same desk and just need to run it a at most 4 feet? (that's how wide the desk is LOL).

I know shielded is usually better but I was hoping for such a short run I could get away with not shielded. Plus it's a home environment. Not a lot of devices like in an office setting.

Most probably totally fine or less than 1% problems.

My father was a ham radio operator. His set up interfered with the county radios along with the local school bus system.

I default to shielded no matter the set up.

Ah OK I understand. No ham radios here but lot of school buses lol. Oh well, I've give it a try since I already ordered it and if I see some problems I can just get another one. Thanks for the info.

if you have any wireless in your network, shielded is irrelivent, the wireless even if encrypted will be a vulnrability. if you talking about interfierence with the signal due to non shielded it's also negligable in a home setting.

Would loudspeakers interfere? I guess I could easily test that myself with a laptop and an unshielded cat5e LAN cable.

To test properly, I suggest Devo at high volume. : )

Or Radiohead.