Powerline adapter or a better Wireless set up?

Well last Sep/Oct I think it was, the family upgraded to BT infinity (lines rated at 56mb DL, 20mb UPL). Sadly we are now only able to connect via wireless methods as the Engineers fitted it all downstairs and cleverly decided years ago to deactivate/cut off the upstairs line. So unless I put a **** load of cables from the router downstairs trailing upstairs Its not really possible to connect via ethernet to various desktops located upstairs, and to be honest i've been using wireless for years.

We have an openreach modem and BT hub 3 at the moment, which are ok not brilliant as the hub3 cant do dual band and its not got a great speed, to be fair i dont have a 300mbps wireless adapter either, only 150mbps N's. The laptops are sufficient enough and get around 30-32mbps with 150mbps N cards, tried with an 100mbps cat5e ethernet cable into router downstairs with laptop, and it would reach around 42-45mbps through speedtest.net. The desktops upstairs also have 150mbps N wireless adapters and get about 28-30mbps average through speedtest.net.

I would like to gain some more speed if possible, more so for my desktop computers as one is used for gaming. Laptop speeds are sufficient enough for what i use them for. So I am not sure if its worth me getting some powerline adapters for the desktop computers, as it says up to 500mbps capable, something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-044-TP&tool=3&groupid=46&catid=1604&subcat=. Or would it be better to just buy a new dual band router capable of 2.4 and 5ghz with either up to 300mbps or 450mbps speeds? for example: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-049-AS&groupid=46&catid=1596&subcat= or http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-028-AS&groupid=46&catid=1596&subcat=. Then I would also need to purchase some new wireless adapters for the computers at the same capable speeds.

Seems to work out more expensive to upgrade everything (Adapters + router) rather than perhaps just get a few powerline adapters that could work out faster for the desktop pc's? Could call an engineer out to try sort out an upstairs line again, but the bill would probably come to something like £150-200 and you never know what they're going to **** up.

Anyone have experience with both and can offer some help?

Havnt had much experience with having wireless upstairs so I used 2 500mbps powerline adapters and I get the full speed to my pc's upstairs so in my opinion I would go for the powerline everytime.

True_Scotsman said:

Havnt had much experience with having wireless upstairs so I used 2 500mbps powerline adapters and I get the full speed to my pc's upstairs so in my opinion I would go for the powerline everytime.

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Do you mean you get the same speeds as using an ethernet cable or the full 500mbps speed from the adapters?

well i have 50mbps cable broadband and when downloading on the pc's connected via the powerline adapter I get the full 50mbps.

I've found power-line to be much more reliable.

Hmm, interesting that you get the full 50mbps out of it ! I have seen many other reviewers of these say the same thing. Do you have the TP-Link versions, True Scotsman?

I have 2x the 500mbps Netgear ones (little bit more expensive but all i could get here in Holland) and 1x 200 TPLink one for my media PC in the living room.

My router and moden are in a cupboard in the hall out the way so power line was my only option for my PC upstairs as I didnt want to run cables every where.

Well decided to order the TP-Link versions of the powerline adapters for the desktop computers, and some CAT 6 cables as I was unsure if they came with any? Also got a wireless N 300mbps adapter for one of the laptops as its currently using a G band, so should help get it to about circa 130-150mbps like the other 2.

Hopefully I will see some improvements, and will of saved more money rather than upgrading all the wireless stuff Or getting an engineer to come and reinstall the upstairs line.

The TPLink ones come with just bog standard cat5, not even 5e. My initial plan was to run decent wireless throughout a flat. Had the router in the loft space and thought it'd be enough but nope, never saw reliable speeds, even through thin plasterboard. Got 4 of the powerline adapters and its running at around 300mbs

I could be entirely wrong and would be happy to be proved so, but I would suspect that unless you mounted the router upside down in the loft, the fact that you were underneath it might have had something to do with the unreliability and poor quality.

I've just had a nightmare of an evening with my powerline adaptors, moral of the story: set the damn encryption key on them!!!

I was on mumble steam and origin and all of them kept disconnecting and reconnecting constantly, then when i tried to go to my sky router it said password auth needed for a netgear dgn1000 .... i think i was seeing the house next door!! lol

So yea....set your passwords, random though as i've been using them for about 2 months now

The powerline adapters came today and i've set them up, already seeing a vast improvement compared to my wireless adapter. Yeah I noticed the TP-Link cables supplied were Cat5's so I'am glad i ordered CAT6's and it says im running at 1Gbps which probably isn't possible seeing as they claim up to 500mbps, but I guess thats because their CAT 6 Gigabit cables. It does feel like I'm getting full speed anyway.

How do you go about setting a password/key on them? My box came with a small CD but ive not looked at it yet, or do you mean going into Router settings and doing it that way?

With the netgear ones the CD had a utility where you could set the passwords on the units, all you need is the code from the back of them.

So check the cd out

Skellz said:

The powerline adapters came today and i've set them up, already seeing a vast improvement compared to my wireless adapter. Yeah I noticed the TP-Link cables supplied were Cat5's so I'am glad i ordered CAT6's and it says im running at 1Gbps which probably isn't possible seeing as they claim up to 500mbps, but I guess thats because their CAT 6 Gigabit cables. It does feel like I'm getting full speed anyway.

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The powerline adapters have gigabit network ports on them so the 1Gbps speed shown in Windows is between your Ethernet port and the one on the powerline adapter, the 500mbps is their powerline speed (so it would be a bit silly if they had 100mbps Ethernet ports wouldn't it? ).

BTW Cat5 is perfectly fine for gigabit over a couple of meters, my gigabit switch at home and the one I use for Lanpartys are both wired with old school Cat5 cables and work fine. So if you buy any extra powerline adapters in future don't bother with the Cat6.