Most of the lines in that old school were good, but we did find a few with problems. A couple of them were completely severed somewhere up in the ceiling where they’d been run. Others had beaks in one or two of the individual cables. We even found one that was intact, but the wires had been crisscrossed so that they never would have worked before. This tester shows you if the lines are crossed or not, so all we had to do was re-punch those cables back down on the block and it worked fine after that.
You see, we were in there testing all those cables long before anybody had moved into the building, so we didn’t have any computer equipment there. Guys were still laying carpet and painting while we were working, so it was not a friendly environment for computers. Without being able to test those lines before people moved in, we’d just be plugging people in and hoping for the best. With this LinkRunner Pro, we knew exactly what needed to be done before we had to climb over anybody’s desk. It’s so much easier to run cables and such when the rooms are empty.
In addition to the line testing functions, this device will also give you information about your network. It’s a great way to figure out if things are not communicating. If you are connecting the line back to a switch, it will show you a visual representation of that switch, give you the cable length of the run, and more. When coupled with a Toner, this device will also help you identify cables when you don’t know to where the other end of it runs, especially when you’ve got a big bundle of them back in your server room.
This network multimeter is housed in a bright yellow case that has a soft rubberized texture that making it easier to hold and less likely to slide off a smooth surface. The LCD display is fairly easy to read and packs a lot of information on its 2 x 1 inch screen. It uses 4 AA batteries, which do last quite a while. We used this thing every day for two weeks before the batteries finally went out.
If you ever have to deal with cable troubleshooting, the LinkRunner Pro is an excellent tool that will save you a lot of time and frustration. It might seem a little expensive on the front end, but this thing really pays for itself when it comes to solving problems in a timely manner. It’s also cool to have strange little toys to play with in front of people who have no idea how any of that network stuff works. The LinkRunner kit currently sells for $895.60 at Amazon.com.