> > Are there bad clips lurking around out there that I should avoid? I have Maybe... > always assumed that a clip was a clip, and when one place has them for > $1/clip and another has them for $.10/clip dealer #1 was being greedy. Is > there some kind of "low loss plastic" that makes clip #1 better? I use > the cheapies and I've never had a bad crimp. The cat-5 standard, in addition to defining the colors you're supposed to wire for different things like Tx and Rx +/-, probably also specifies number of twists per inch and operational results -- like how it must successfully transmit 100MHz without losing more than X dB. The "extended performance" cat-5 is supposed to support 350MHz. So "bad" RJ-45 ends may make it more difficult for you to wire it securely, and could conceivably provide some additional resistance, but practically speaking they're all pretty much the same. Other considerations may have to do with the particular construction of the plastic clip part -- a bad one may not actually connect and lock nicely to your NIC or hub port, or it may be real hard to grasp it to unplug it. See how trivial this is? Andy > -Brian