Cat 5 wire and Romex

[jodadog]

Can cat 5 and speaker wire be run by romex power wires? I had to cross an area with cat5 and speaker wire by my power wires for some lights. Will there be noise on the line?

 

[MDS]

The pairs in cat5 are tightly twisted to help reject noise so that will probably be ok. Speaker wire is more likely to pick up noise and as a rule it's best to cross the speaker wire over the power wire at right angles if you cannot provide adequate separation between the two wires.