Just moved house, speeds have turned to garbage

3lackMamba

3lackMamba

3lackMamba

Associate
Joined
13 Sep 2012
Posts
212
Location
Belfast
Hi guys

Recently I moved house, the previous house I lived in was a pretty banged up 2 story house, but with my home plugs the internet was pretty much running at full speed. I have the 100mbps package with Virgin.

The house I moved too is a 3 story house which has been completely refurbished, a lot of work put in to it but it is still an old home and wiring may still be old, I'm not too sure TBH. But one thing is for sure, my speeds have plumited, my PC room is on the top floor and I'm getting 10-20mpbs on speedtest.net from the homeplugs ethernet, but my phone is getting OVER 100mbps through wireless... from the top floor!!

I bought the home plug adapter this year, they are the TP-Link TL-PA4020P (updated to latest firmware) and worked fine before the move, I haven't changed cables or anything. The only thing that's changed is that I was upgraded to the Virgin 3.0 Hub.

I've been using homeplugs for years now and I would maybe have 2-3 DC's a week for a few minutes at a time, and honestly I've never experienced any DC's on my phone from wireless in my house. I want to get this sorted fast and am seriously considering just getting a wireless dongle for my PC instead of spending days on end trying to fix something that cant be fixed.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I know gaming and wireless doesn't really go well in the same sentence but, it's 2018, what's wireless like these days in terms of gaming?

**There is no way of getting a single cable from the Hub to my PC, my landlord won't let me drill holes through the ceilings and theres no way I'm routing a wire to the third floor. The missus would kill me. It's homeplugs or wireless unfortunately**

Thanks
 
Why not add a WiFi dongle and use both homeplugs and wireless for different situations? Gaming doesn’t use any bandwidth really so if you get better latency on the homeplugs you’ll be gaming just fine at 10Mbps. Then for downloading and streaming (the only things that will need more than 10Mbps) use your WiFi adapter.

It doesn’t fix the root cause but that’s only fixable by running a cable which you won’t do. This way you get low latency when you need it and high bandwidth when you need it.
 
Would I have to switch between the 2 connections manually or is there a way to setup windows so it automatically chooses the best connection source? I also stream a little and I’m getting better upload through the wireless. I know gaming doesn’t use much bandwidth I was more questioning the connectivity and stability of wireless these days in gaming use. Will I be getting lag spikes etc?

BigT said:
It doesn’t fix the root cause but that’s only fixable by running a cable which you won’t do. This way you get low latency when you need it and high bandwidth when you need it.
Click to expand...
Honestly it’s not because I don’t want too, I know the the landlord and he put a lot of work into the house, he just about let’s us hang pictures up let a lone drilling holes through ceilings.
 
For testing I'd be putting the PC next to the hub with a cat5 cable and see what speed you get then, if it's the full 100 then it's something with the internal wiring that's causing the homeplugs to not work right.
 
Glanza said:
For testing I'd be putting the PC next to the hub with a cat5 cable and see what speed you get then, if it's the full 100 then it's something with the internal wiring that's causing the homeplugs to not work right.
Click to expand...
I guess I could do that, it’s right beside the TV so I can just plug the PC into that, give me an hour or so.
 
try an internal pciex 300mbps adapter with long antennae. should be ok. best option is to run a cat5 under the edge of the carpet tho
 
Lol........ This is awkward

I brought my PC downstairs to test and on closer insepction it turns out the hub was connected to the downstairs homeplug by the.. get this.. ethernet cable that came with my Xbox 360.. Yup, a 10 year old ethernet cable lol I don't know how this happened, I musn't have noticed amongst the chaos of moving and setting everything up >_<

Speeds have def shot way back up, still loosing about 20-30mbps upstairs compared to having it connected directly to the Hub, but thats kinda expected with homeplugs, right?
 
Glanza said:
You'd expect some loss with how you've described the wiring setup.
Click to expand...
Well I've replaced the cables now, its Cat6 on either end and I'm loosing around 50 mbps actually on further testing.. When the PC was connected directly I was getting about 100-110mbps and back upstairs I'm getting 60-65 with the homeplugs..
 
Not a issue with the VM connection if your getting full speed plugged directly in, it's sounding more like wiring in your house. Are you in a terrace house by any chance?
 
Glanza said:
Not a issue with the VM connection if your getting full speed plugged directly in, it's sounding more like wiring in your house. Are you in a terrace house by any chance?
Click to expand...
Yeah I kinda guessed it wasn't VM's fault. Yes terrace housing, and although this house is refurbished like I said, they are still old house's so potentially old wiring. I can live with this these speeds don't get me wrong, download speeds is still 8/9MB but I might get a wireless card just so I can get the full benefit of what I'm paying for..

I can use a wireless card in conjunction with a wired connection can't I? I would just have to manually switch between the two connections for whatever situatuion i need it for or is there a way I can run the speeds of wireless + the stability of wired??
 
Last edited:
WiFi will likely be better than home plugs for gaming. The ping will be more stable.

Home plugs are heavily dependent on wiring & as soon as the signal passes through a junction box or similar, it degrades fast due to the noise there.

Even when they are working well, the ping through them often fluctuates quite substantially...

WiFi is your best option IMO... or find a way to run an ethernet cable (might be easier than you think, ask an electrician - wouldn't cost much if you can't do it yourself).
 
Yeah I’m gonna give it a try, haven’t been wireless in a very long time.

Asus PCE-N15 or TP-LINK WN881ND, one as good as the other or?
 
3lackMamba said:
Yeah I’m gonna give it a try, haven’t been wireless in a very long time.

Asus PCE-N15 or TP-LINK WN881ND, one as good as the other or?
Click to expand...

TP-Link gets better reviews... if you find you want a bit more speed or slightly more stable ping, one cheap improvement is to replace the antennae
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom