Setup advice/lack of ports!

Emjay86

Emjay86

Emjay86

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Joined
2 Apr 2011
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1,075
Location
Wales
Hello peeps,

I'm hoping you can advise me on a little pickle I have found myself in!

I have just moved in to a new home with family and they already have a network set up. I wanted to add a PC and tv set in two different rooms up to the network.

I was lucky enough that I had a spare pair of power line adapters which has solved the issue of setting up the tv in the one room but the PC room is not on the network currently.

The power line that feeds the tv is actually in the PC room so in theory I could just unplug and plug as I like, but that isn't all that feasable. So I am left with me needing another ethernet cable to plug into my pc, but no way of feeding any more cables from as the router is full and is downstairs anyway (hence the power line set up for tv).

What are my options?

I preferably want to maintain use of my tv and pc at all times.

Thanks in advance!
 
Plug the powerline in the PC room into a cheap unmanaged 8 port switch and plug your TV and PC into the same switch. It’ll just work with no configuration.
 
BigT said:
Plug the powerline in the PC room into a cheap unmanaged 8 port switch and plug your TV and PC into the same switch. It’ll just work with no configuration.
Click to expand...

If I do that, I'll need to either but another power line socket for the tv room or route a cable through the house to it which is quite a distance and not easy at all, that's if it's even possible...

I guess my issue is that the powerline socket that connects to the network only has 1 ethernet port, which is being used to connect to the network and I need another to run from the socket to my PC. Is there some sort of splitter cable I can use to plug into the adapter to create an extra socket at that point?
 
Emjay86 said:
If I do that, I'll need to either but another power line socket for the tv room or route a cable through the house to it which is quite a distance and not easy at all, that's if it's even possible...

I guess my issue is that the powerline socket that connects to the network only has 1 ethernet port, which is being used to connect to the network and I need another to run from the socket to my PC. Is there some sort of splitter cable I can use to plug into the adapter to create an extra socket at that point?
Click to expand...
Yes a switch as mentioned above.
 
Maybe I’ve miss understood your locations bu you place the switch where the powerline socket is plugged in. It is the “splitter” you are looking for. It’s one Ethernet port connects to it and you magically now have seven more free ports (if you buy an 8 port switch)
 
I think the OP can’t plug in the switch and Powerline at the same time. Not enough 13A sockets.
 
Sorry guys, I've probably described it poorly!!

I'm in a large house and I've got some rooms upstairs for myself, namely the PC room and tv room. The main connection to the internet is downstairs and we have managed to get an ethernet cable up to the PC room but I need to also get an ethernet cable into the tv room.

My solution to the tv room was the powerline adapters that I had hanging around, but this has used up the ethernet cable in the PC room to push the signal to the t.v. room.

My thinking was that there was some sort of splitter I could use to plug the ethernet into and then into the powerline, leaving a spare socket for me to run another ethernet cable into my pc. The issue here is I will need to maintain use of the t.v. and pc at the same time...

Hopefully that explains it a bit clearer!

Huge thanks so far for the help, very much appreciated.
 
Yes. Plug the Ethernet cable that comes up into a switch. Take one feed from the switch to the first local device and take the second feed from the switch to the home plugs. Job done.
 
I'm still not sure I understand. You must have two powerline adapters? One is in the TV room. Where is the other one?

You have real ethernet running from your router downstairs to your PC Room correct? So one solution is:

Ethernet cable from router to your PC room. Attach it in the PC Room to a switch, Now you have 7 empty sockets. One socket from switch to your PC. One socket from the same switch into a powerline adapter in your PC room. This will communicate with the powerline adapter in your TV room. Powelrine in your TV room into the TV (as I assume it is already doing). Now the TV and PC are all on the same network and can connect to the internet. Like this:

Screenshot-2021-02-17-at-09-15-49.png
 
Amazing, that makes perfect sense. Special thanks for the diagram!

I'll get myself a switch and should be good to go!

Thanks again guys, your all amazing and I hugely appreciate the prompt responses.

Cheers!
 
Hi guys,

So the switch works and I now have access to the internet on my PC and tv!

One problem, I keep experiencing disconnects on the tv via the ethernet but if I use the Wi-Fi it's fine.

I'm on a Plusnet fibre connection (that has terrible speeds also by the looks of it!) And there are 9 of us in the house, so lots of Wi-Fi devices and whatnot (in the range of 15).

Any ideas?
 
Emjay86 said:
Hi guys,

So the switch works and I now have access to the internet on my PC and tv!

One problem, I keep experiencing disconnects on the tv via the ethernet but if I use the Wi-Fi it's fine.

I'm on a Plusnet fibre connection (that has terrible speeds also by the looks of it!) And there are 9 of us in the house, so lots of Wi-Fi devices and whatnot (in the range of 15).

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I’d put money on it being the powerline. Are they made by TP-Link by any chance?
 
Power lines switches, Ethernet cables and Access Points are your options.

Depends how big the house is depends on what you need to cover the whole house.

If you have just moved in use this opportunity to stick couple points in each room.

You won’t regret it.
 
BigT said:
I’d put money on it being the powerline. Are they made by TP-Link by any chance?
Click to expand...

They are made by BT (the 600 series).

I've used them in a previous house and they seemed to do fine there. The internet keeps dropping in general around the house but most typically with the ethernet cable. I'm having to use mobile data to post this as it's completely down this morning too.

Likely I'm gonna have to call Plusnet because something definitely isn't right but it would be good to have an idea of what it is first.

Thanks
 
Emjay86 said:
They are made by BT (the 600 series).

I've used them in a previous house and they seemed to do fine there. The internet keeps dropping in general around the house but most typically with the ethernet cable. I'm having to use mobile data to post this as it's completely down this morning too.

Likely I'm gonna have to call Plusnet because something definitely isn't right but it would be good to have an idea of what it is first.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Try and pinpoint what's going wrong.

Does WiFi drop out?
Does it stay but with no internet access?
Does WiFi and wired get affected at the same time?
 
Nutty_Death said:
Try and pinpoint what's going wrong.

Does WiFi drop out?
Does it stay but with no internet access?
Does WiFi and wired get affected at the same time?
Click to expand...

So to answer that I can give you this:

The now tv box stopped working yesterday morning which was plugged into an ethernet cable, coming from a powerlink socket that has been fine in my previous house. Upon turning the now t.v. connection to wireless it managed to connect meaning that at that time the Wi-Fi was fine and working but that specific ethernet wasn't. Whether it applied to the whole house or not I'm unsure.

I've moved in to a house with family for the time being and there are quite a few devices running, multiple Google home things and various phones and laptops etc on the Wi-Fi, I'm assuming this isn't an issue?

My brother in law mentioned when I moved in on Monday that the internet drops all the time and it's generally crap. He said he's been trying to download the new CoD on his Xbox for about a month on and off. I presume this is largely down to him using a Wi-Fi connection. In addition to this however, when I checked my now t.v. connection it provided me with a 42mb/s connection for my previous house and then when I updated it to this current house it dropped to 7mb/s.

Both houses had the same speed internet, mine was with BT, this one is with Plusnet.

Presumably this is due to so many devices being plugged in at once? Or is there something drastically wrong?

I launched steam the other day and it took me about 5 mins to download less than 1mb but it then bumped up to a higher speed after some time.

It's worth noting that I've moved from a small village to a larger town so area traffic may well be playing a part here.
 
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