I'm not a newbie, I've been making cables for about 20 years and using straight through connectors for 3 years. On a 40ft run of Cat 6 I made 3 attempts to terminate the cable. 2 times the line only negotiated 100 MBit, once they got no link at all. I made my 4th try with a competitor's Cat 5 passthrough and only then was I able to achieve gigabit speeds. I use a good quality Platinum Tools pass-through crimp tool. I've used Platinum Tools connectors in the past, albeit Category 5e, and have never had a single termination problem. I have requested a refund and sent it back.