so apparently the CAT5E precrimped cable I bought like 5 years ago for cheap ... turns out to be cheap shit! Finally bought crimping equipment, got ready to repurpose it for something else, cut it open, its UTP cable for "UnTwisted Pair" that isnt even colour coded correctly, and pretty sure its very much NOT copper of course, great fun of what to do now. No wonder I could not get my intel ethernet adapter to work over this crap

recrimped, second one was certainly better than the first one, but for the short distance I was deploying this, ~2 meters, it can somehow do GIGABIT over this trash??? no more issues with no carrier being detected, and now the family is happy that the internet is better, already figured out what I need to crimp next thankfully. Physical networking is a fun dopamine hit in between all the shit happening.