sbrown:
The only thing my +5V goes to is the wires that connect to the arduino input pins. I suppose using resistors after the circuit is split in parallel as opposed to using a resistor before the circuit is split in parallel will send different amounts of amperage to the pins in each case.
I think you may not be understanding the point of the resistors.
The resistors protect the Arduino pins in case they are accidentally programmed as outputs.
By placing them very close to the pins ( between the pins and the cable wires), you not only protect them from the 5v at the other end of the wire but from each other should wires in the cable ever short together.
Using a resistor at the far end won't protect the pins from each other if there is a short inside the cable and the pins happen to accidentally be programmed as an output.
But beyond that, your design seems flawed.
If you have 5v at the remote end of the wire, you can detect that voltage on an input pin, but the input signal becomes undefined when there is no voltage like when the wire is broken . To solve that you would need to use a external pull down resistor on the input pin.
It would be simpler if you did it the other way around as I previously described by using INPUT_PULLUP mode on the input pins and grounding the remote end.
If you see high on the input, the ground on the other end of the wire is not present.
Alternatively, it seems simplest, (since shorts are not an issue) if you were to eliminate the Arduino all together, and just had an LED per wire that lit up when there was conductivity.
One end of the wire gets live voltage say 3-12v and the other end connects to a resistor and LED to ground.
You can test a cable of any number of wires as well.
It is very simple and presents information about each wire.
i.e. a 2 wire cable would light 2 leds, a 3 wire 3 etc...
Very much like the old rs232 breakout boxes.
BTW, how long are the wires you are testing?
Depending on the length, you may run into other issues like voltage drop within the cable wiring that can cause issues.
--- bill