Cat cable tester question - Solved

I have a cheapo cat cable continuity tester. Using a premade CAT5E STP cable it shows all 4 pairs connected  as well as the shield (as Expected)

Now I'm repairing my cat5e STP snake. If the shield is not connected at both  ends, this tester shows all 4 pairs connected properly. If I connect shield to both ends the tester shows Pin 8 open!!?

I put an ohmmeter on the cable and all wires are intact (continuity  checks out).

Have you any idea what this could be?

Larry Sheehan said:

I put an ohmmeter on the cable and all wires are intact (continuity  checks out).

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That seems to be the best final testing stage. If you have continuity between all wires and no shorts , all is good

Larry Sheehan said:

I have a cheapo cat cable continuity tester.
Have you any idea what this could be?

Click to expand...

Probably the cheap tester has some internal fault. Maybe some short with Pin8 to the the shield?

Whoops said:

That seems to be the best final testing stage. If you have continuity between all wires and no shorts , all is good

Probably the cheap tester has some internal fault. Maybe some short with Pin8 to the the shield?

Click to expand...

Initially I suspected the tester, but when a known good cable tested out correctly, I figured the tester was probably OK.

Larry Sheehan said:

Initially I suspected the tester, but when a known good cable tested out correctly, I figured the tester was probably OK.

Click to expand...

You said that a "known good cable" with shields tested "incorrectly" in the cheap tester...

Whoops said:

You said that a "known good cable" with shields tested "incorrectly" in the cheap tester...

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If i did, I meant correctly, but I checked my original post and I think I said all pairs and shield showed continuity on the premade (known good) cable.

Larry Sheehan said:

If i did, I meant correctly, but I checked my original post and I think I said all pairs and shield showed continuity on the premade (known good) cable.

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I bought a better tester, and it appears the my original tester was in fact bad. I thought I had verified it was OK , but did that using a shorter cable. The new tester reports the length of the shorter cable 25 feet correctly and the longer (293 feet) cable as properly wired.

Sorry for the confusion.