I have an exterior hikvision dome ip camera that stopped working in a 4 camera nvr setup. It worked fine for over a year.
I've tried a bunch of things to narrow down the problem. I updated the firmware on the nvr and power cycled it. I switched the nvr port for the camera to verify not a nvr port problem. I used the camera with a short cat6 close to the nvr and it worked as expected. The testing leads me to think it is an issue with the cat5e cable.
It seems like poe cables use 2 pairs for power and 1 pair for data leaving 1 spare pair of wires.
What is the best way to test the cat5e cable and determine the issue? I've crimped down on the connectors again in case there was something wrong, I've added connection enhancer to both the connector and the camera and it worked for a number of hours before it cut out again. Once it cuts out it doesn't seem to come back but taking down the camera, pulling the eth cord and putting it back in has allowed the camera to wake up and work for a number of hours.
I am thinking of putting a new connector on the camera end as the cat5e cord was a little bent and compressed under the camera so maybe over time the wires inside became damaged but it would be nice to know that wire x is the problem that I could use the spare pair and possibly get around a damaged wire within the cat5e cable.
I have a network cable tester it indicates that pair 3/6 are not working. I left the camera plugged in and the green lights cycled through the pairs skipping the 3&6. I tried it against a good cable and it cycled through all the pairs. It seems like there are some specialized poe testers on amazon not sure if that would help me anymore than this.
Here is a picture of a 5e box the installer used. I don't have a picture of the black 5e box but looking at the side of the cable it is marked:
SAE cat5e ansi/tia-568c.2 CMR 75C 4PR E308932 (UL) FT4 Enhanced Verified
I created a cat6 cable and tested with the tester then cut out pairs 4/5 7/8. I attached the camera to the nvr with this cable hoping it would just work since mode A poe only requires 1/2 3/6 and these pairs handle both data and power. I tested the cable with my tester and the 1/2 3/6 pair light up but using it to connect the camera didn't meet with success.
I had some trouble creating the cable and the network tester seemed to indicate that my cable had a bad 3/6 ( same problem as the camera ) so after what felt like hours of trying to create a cable I tried a known good cable again and it said bad 3/6 when using the two ports on the tester. I switched to using one port on the tester and one on the remote tester and then 3/6 illuminated. Seems like the 3/6 on the tester is a little iffy. I put the remote on the cable at the camera end and the tester on the cable at the nvr end and now all the pairs seem to be lighting up ok.
I let the network cable sit for the night and checked it and all pairs were reporting good. I took the tester and tried the camera again and this time I was able to see a bad 3/6 on the camera. Keeping the camera and cable still I swapped it to the nvr and it wasn't able to be detected so now I am pretty sure the problem is with the 3/6 pair in the cable that is oem to the dome camera. Looking at some youtube videos of people repairing the hikvision cameras it seems likely that the network cable is stranded. It seems like with stranded cables I should either install a punchdown female end or solder if I want to repair. For now I've ordered a replacement camera.
I am happy that the problem doesn't seem to be the house cable but disappointed that the dome camera would be made so cheaply that the cable would break after a couple years - probably designed to fail.
I retested the poe test since it seemed like the camera cable is damaged I wanted to give it another go when I have the camera/cable in a position where the pairs are testing good.
The poe cable test still failed to connect up the dome camera so it would seem the camera/nvr combo doesn't work on mode A. I also monitored the power output using the nvr on the camera - when I have a good cable the power output shows the port drawing power fairly quickly, when I put the mode A cable the power doesn't register.
I am pretty frustrated that the network tester I have has a finicky 3/6 light so I ordered a noyafa poe checker and a WiFi-Texas inline tester for poe. I'll play around with the camera a little bit more once my new tools arrive but I'll likely just install the replacement camera and shelve the damaged one until I get some more time to think about repairing it.