How good are these "powerline" adapters?

pieman109

pieman109

pieman109

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Quite interested in these things, would make networking a lot easier. Do they work with a "DSL" connection, are they easy to set up, how reliable are they, do they work with "Vista 32bit", and lastly is they any interference from the mains voltage?
Cheers. :)
 
I use Netgear HD ones and also Comtrend as supplied with BT Vision with no problems at all

Very flexible - just plug in anywhere you want an Ethernet connection and job's a good 'un
 
ive used the netgear ones before - worked fine in the office and at a customers place, but when i tried some at home they were a bit intermittant - was using them to try and get rid of wi-fi for streaming media but the video would stutter worse that it did on wifi. actually ended up replacing my wireless router with a better one and fingers crossed wireless has been fine since. one thing to be aware of if you go with the netgear ones, the 85mb ones have been recalled due to a safety hazard i believe.

edit: it could be shoddy wiring in the rented place i am living that caused the issues, not the powerline units themselves! :)
 
I use them to stream TV / connect Xbox 360 etc. Also useful when work don't allow you to use wireless to VPN into work.

Always been reliable for me, never had any issues. Just plug and play.
 
a mate of mine who suffered with massive connection issues with wireless for years upgraded to them a couple of years ago. he tells me they're still working excellently.
 
I'm having mixed success with the Netgear 200mbps product. I have three of these, one to link into the existing network in the upstairs office and then one to give access to the bedroom and lounge based HTPCs.

Office -> lounge transfers are reasonably fast even though they are on different circuits but Office to Bedroom connectivity on the same circuit is quite slow at times. Even though the connectivity is rated at HD Video at best I do find it struggling to stream anything over it, (despite the rest of the network being gigabit).

I'm finding them better than wireless but not as good as I was hoping.

[note: this is a new house with new wiring and fuse box]
 
pieman109 said:
Quite interested in these things, would make networking a lot easier. Do they work with a "DSL" connection, are they easy to set up, how reliable are they, do they work with "Vista 32bit", and lastly is they any interference from the mains voltage?
Cheers. :)
Click to expand...

It will take you longer to get them out of the box than to get them going at default security settings. Software only needed to monitor conections & alter default security settings. Vista software avaiable for homeplug units not sure about competing powerline technology.

In my experience with 85mbps Homeplug vs wifi they are much less trouble, reliable and not prone to dropping a connection completely.

Like wifi the full advertised speed can be hard to get between all points but a better connection than most wifi units is pretty easy in a normal house. The utility will show that certain mains points give better results for no good reason, so you can try to optimise the network a little.

Surge protection extensions and some appliances can filter out the signal or intefere but they can be bypassed and any appliance putting constant interference into the mains probably needs lookg into.

The signal the units put into the mains is not going to affect any ordinary appliance.

Reliable networking suitable for sharing broadband is easy. Sharing files or streaming video is more of a lottery. The newer high speed AV200 speeds are bigger and faster & run hotter.

For a dsl connection you get or keep your DSL router, plug an adapter in to the mains, link it via a short (provided) ehernet cable to a ethernet port on the router and do the same with another adapter and ethernet cable at the PC.

The 85 mbps units are really cheap at the moment and you dont need anything faster for sharing boradband and small files IMHO
 
I want to be able to stream SD and HD content from my PC to my showcenter. At the moment the showcenter connects to my ADSL router via wired ethernet and the PC upstairs with all the content is wireless.

The problem is that the card is not "fully" supported on Vista64, so whilst its actually fine for streaming SD (till I get an HD telly), gaming latency is a big issue (it just hangs for a few seconds at random intervals).

My thoughts were that perhaps I should get the Homeplug 85Mbps cheap stuff to replace the wireless link to the desktop PC and enable an HD stream from the showcenter. Will 85Mbps be enough for a HD stream or do I need to invest far more for a 200Mbps standard connection?
 
Cheers guys, theres some really useful info here. I must admit when I first saw these things advertised, I thought it was joke!:)
I fancy trying a pair of these out with the option to put more pcs onto a home network.
 
Apparently stay away from the
D-Link DHP-301


I've read literally hundreds of customer reviews off different sites that say they failed within 1 to 5 months. One guys RMA'd 4 sets of units! Apparently its the heat they produce that kills them.

So what units have decent reliability and speed?
 
Using the Solwise 200mbit rated ones, see about 40Mbit/sec throughput on average between things on the network which I'm quite happy with :)

The newer ones just have a button on the front of them that you press to secure them which is handy as the software for my ones is a bit ropey to say the least.
 
tbz_ck said:
Apparently stay away from the
D-Link DHP-301


I've read literally hundreds of customer reviews off different sites that say they failed within 1 to 5 months. One guys RMA'd 4 sets of units! Apparently its the heat they produce that kills them.

So what units have decent reliability and speed?
Click to expand...

i think is a similar problem with the 85mb netgear ones too so i would stay away from those too - well, they have been recalled now anyway.
 
Another thing with the Netgear 200mbps ones if you are going to put one in a bedroom ... they have an extremely bright blue led when the powerline link is connected which is very disturbing at night, (but can be fixed with electrical tape :) )
 
NickR said:
I use Netgear HD ones and also Comtrend as supplied with BT Vision with no problems at all

Very flexible - just plug in anywhere you want an Ethernet connection and job's a good 'un
Click to expand...

..forgot - I also use X10 on the same mains outlet as the powerline adapter and it still works , although I suspect that the speed may be reduced slightly (still shows around 85Mb though)
 
Devolo 200mbs "AV" = use 3 - no probs streaming DVD quality videos - don't like earth leakage circuit breakers though - signal won't pass through if you have 2 ccts.
 
I'm using 2x 85mbps homeplugs (just called "Max Value" home plugs) to connect my router to my Xbox 360 in another room. I tried wireless but it wasn't fast enough to stream content to the console and gave me quite a bit of lag in some games. The homeplugs have solved both problems and only cost me £44 for 2! They don't seem very hot either, they're definitely warm, but not what I'd call "hot" by a long way.
 
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