Networking – How to properly connect shielded twisted pair cables for Ethernet use

If you want to connect these cables to your D-Link switch's 10GBASE-T ports, then you need to put whatever connector your D-Link switch has, and your D-Link switch almost certainly has Cat 6a 8P8C ("RJ-45") connectors, because it's been designed to work with Cat 6 and Cat 6a cabling.

Your D-Link switch almost certainly doesn't have those weird ARJ45 or GG45 connectors that put two of the pairs on the bottom (tab side) of the connector instead of keeping them all in a full row of 8 pins on the top.

IEEE 802.3 10GBASE-T 10 Gigabit Ethernet over twisted-pair copper requires ISO/IEC Class E (which maps to ANSI/EIA/TIA Cat 6) or better. Unscreened (unshielded) Cat 6 can do 10GBASE-T at up to 55 meter distances, and shielded Cat 6 can do 10GBASE-T at up to 100m distances.

So, in summary:

• Despite D-Link's marketing claims, I doubt your switch is truly Cat 7 compliant, because it doesn't have Cat 7 compliant jacks. However, since your switch can probably already hit its maximum capabilities over Cat 6 shielded cable, it's safe for them to say it works with Cat 7 cable, because Cat 7 is as good or better than Cat 6 in all respects, so the extra quality is just a bonus.
• You probably need to put a Cat 6a-rated 8P8C (RJ-45) connector on that cable to connect it to your D-Link 10GBASE-T switch ports.
• Putting that Cat 6a 8P8C on your Cat 7 cable may technically make it no longer Cat 7 compliant. But you won't notice anything on your D-Link switch because your D-Link switch can already do everything it needs to do over some form of Cat 6 cable.

OK, but what about wall jacks and patch panels? If you want to preserve the Cat 7 compliance of your structured cabling in your building, I suppose you could use ARJ45/GG45 or even TERA connectors in those other locations. You'd just have to make ARJ45/GG45-to-RJ45 equipment cables to go from the wall (or patch panel) to the Ethernet ports on your switches or host NICs. But that seems expensive and a little outside of the mainstream. If I were you, for now, I'd terminate it "Cat 6a" style everywhere, even if I'd pulled Cat 7 compliant cable through the walls. If GG45 or ARJ45 (or something else) ever catch on, I'd re-terminate my wall jacks and patch panels at that time.

[Updated to remove my "But ANSI/EIA/TIA are who really get to define Cat 7" quibbles. ISO/IEC 11801:2002 defines Cat 7, not just Class F.]

No. On of the pieces of the connection (either Cat5 cable or the Cat6 cable) is a cross over. In addition make sure you're not using an uplink port on your router as that might be crossed. Up to date routers and switches usually should be able to use MDI-X to automatically switch whenever it should be a crossover port or not.

Test both Cat5 cables whenever they're straight or not. If both are straight chances are that the Cat6 is a crossover, maybe because someone wasn't paying attention while assembling the termination points.