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This is probably a trivia question or a chance to educate me on something I know nothing about.

I have a VINA technologies cable here part # 730-202717-00

On one end is a white snag free hood and what looks like aluminum shielding. On the other end is a black snag free hood and what looks like a normal unshielded RJ-45. As far as I can tell these are factory molded/crimped.

Is this just a normal CAT 5 cable or is there something special about this cable I'd be curious to know before I toss it in the trash?

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For the curious I found an old documentation CD for a VINA eLink-216 IAD. It was old school as the LAN interface was 10Base-T and the PDF was created in 2001. –  pplrppl Jan 22 '10 at 19:02
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3 Answers

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It's a shielded cable. The shield really only needs to be earthed at one end, not both.

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any guess as to why they color coded the ends if it's just a normal cat5 shielded patch cable? –  pplrppl Jan 11 '10 at 22:40
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Maybe it's a luxury but given how cheap most cables are these days I have a rule;

'Never trust a cable you don't know inside-out for anything you care about'

I've been bitten too many times by dodgy cables.

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I'm not worried about having to use it. I have hundreds of CAT6 cables I'd reach for before the CAT5 I'm asking about. It just surpises me that one end doesn't match the other in terms of color without it being a custom cable. –  pplrppl Jan 11 '10 at 20:33
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Are both ends normal RJ-45? If so just compare the order of the pairs in the ends, sounds like it could be a crossover cable but more than likely it's just an overly expensive cat 5 cable.

Considering what VINA technologies does/makes, it could be a proprietary cable to connect hardware, sounds like a T1 cable. Got a picture?

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Its not a crossover. Those I've seen before. –  pplrppl Jan 11 '10 at 20:32
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