First PC build help

[WantoN]

Thanks, I don't have any ethernet sockets in the house unfortunately. I was also considering those powerline adapters but heard mixed reviews. The only other option would be mesh wifi but that's much more expensive.

Power line adapters, as long as you don’t cheap out, can be very good.

For me, in order of performance it’s Ethernet > PowerLine > Wireless.

But as others will testify, YMMV with PowerLine.

 

[tamzzy]

Power line adapters depends on how good (or crap) the electrical wiring is, in your home. New house? Likely ok. Victorian house with old circuitry? Slower...but not the worse. Personally using a power line adapter in a Victorian home. Occasionally loses link when the microwave or something that is high wattage turns on.
The power line latency also can be affected by your home's circuitry. Nothing too drastic though. Talking like 2-10ms of extra latency

 

[WantoN]

Running Ethernet really isn’t hard tbh.

I’ve done it for several rooms in the house. Often you can piggy back old telephone wiring, as engineers often use cat5 for redundancy. It’s not the fastest, but you can often get a few hundred mb/s.

I’ve done this with our house with good success.

 

[Colin_M]

It's a new build house and there are telephone sockets in each room so I guess that's an option. I'm only on Sky fiber so It wouldn't need to handle anything over 50mb/s to be honest.

 

[WantoN]

It's a new build house and there are telephone sockets in each room so I guess that's an option. I'm only on Sky fiber so It wouldn't need to handle anything over 50mb/s to be honest.

Data transfer to other devices requires more. Streaming to your phone, NAS devices etc

You’d need to see what wire has been used, if it’s cat5 (or better) you could just rewire the sockets to Ethernet on each end. Just unscrew the plate and see if the wire is two cores, or four.

For a modern build I’m sure decent PowerLine adapters would work great too.

Ethernet offers better speeds, better latency, more reliability and less dropped packets.

I ran cat6 when we built our conservatory (my office) and I’m so, so glad I did.

 

[Colin_M]

I'm sure I read somewhere they are cat5 but will double check.

Any particular Power Line adapters you would recommend? I've been looking at TP LINK.

 

[WantoN]

I'm sure I read somewhere they are cat5 but will double check.

Any particular Power Line adapters you would recommend? I've been looking at TP LINK.

Im not really qualified to comment mate. Others will have better experience with them.

If you’ve got cat5 between your router and your PC, that’s the way I’d go. It probably won’t be cat5e, but honestly your speeds should be fine.

 

[lee32uk]

I'm sure I read somewhere they are cat5 but will double check.

Any particular Power Line adapters you would recommend? I've been looking at TP LINK.

I have always found TP Link to be very good. Some of the better ones (More expensive though) will have AC passthrough and Wifi. I guess it depends on what features you need and how much you want to spend.

 

[Double07]

I'm sure I read somewhere they are cat5 but will double check.

Any particular Power Line adapters you would recommend? I've been looking at TP LINK.

I have the bog standard TP link ones and they work fine in the newer part of my house, a fairly recent conservatory and extension. They do not work at all in the front of the house though and its not THAT old, like 70s. I really dont think its anything to do with the powerline adapters though, its just the wiring in here is like the M25 so its almost certainly crap and causing the issue.

In the back of the house they work great. I run an ethernet from my PC which is in the front to my router which is in the back, yeah dont ask The powerlinks are handy af though.