poor powerline adapter speeds through 3 floors. what are my options?

martinoheat

martinoheat

martinoheat

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I have searched for an answer to my problem, but had no luck. If anyone knows of a thread i have missed, please point me in the right direction :)

My problem:
A friend of mine is having trouble with her internet connection:
- her bedroom is on the third floor (attic conversion, if that makes any difference?) and the wireless router (virgin superhub, 60mb broadband) is on the ground floor on the other side of the house.
- due to the distance she cannot connect to the wireless network at all; the laptop simply doesn't find the network.
- she invested in a set of powerline adapters thinking it would be the answer, (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-032-TP) but even with the powerline adapters the internet speed she recieves is PAINFULLY slow. (<1mb download)
- Using the TP link software utility i can see that the connection between the two powerline adapters is 22mb (i THINK it's mb, not MB).
- running BBC speed test she gets less than 1mb download speed.

I am almost certain that this is due to the distance between the router and her room, because when i connect the second adapter in the same room as the router (socket a below) or on the other side of the house on the ground floor (socket b below), the signal is fine and the internet is fast.

It is very impractical to run an Ethernet cable from the router to her room, although i know that it would be ideal.

What can you genuises suggest to solve our problem?

(also, there are no mains sockets on the 1st floor that she could use)

this is the floor plan of the ground floor:
houseplan.jpg



I have 3 ideas, although all require some loooong cables and would be a pain to implement:
1. run a mains extension lead from socket b to her room, with the powerline adapter plugged in at the end, with the laptop plugged into it.
2. plug powerline adapter in to socket b, with a long ethernet cable running from it to her room and her laptop.

3. the same as 1. or 2. but leading to the middle floor, where the powerline adapter is plugged in with a short ethernet cable to a spare linksys wireless router (wrt54g) i have, so she can connect to the internet wirelessly, but only through 1 floor.


comments and advise please!
 
If you can run a mains extension lead from socket B to her room (a really bad idea btw) you can presumably run a network cable from there to her room instead? Plug the Powerline adapter into socket B and use a network cable from there.

The Superhub has notoriously bad wireless performance, just getting a really good wireless router could fix the problem but it wouldn't be particularly cheap (£80+).
 
Last edited:
run this program to test the lan speed then plz post results

http://www.totusoft.com/lanspeed1.html

With a 200mbps powerline kit its halved as its 100mbps each way.

With my house that was built in 2012, right upstairs above the superdud I managed to get 45 / 50 mbps. If your in an older house / have other electrical appliances on then its going to be lower.

If your LAN speed is comming up as 22mb then its not the powerline its something to do with thr superdud / connection.

try this first and let us know.
 
1. Run Cat5e point to point
2. Run External Cat5e outside the house, if the run is shorter?
3. Use a series of Wi-Fi Repeaters such as the AP-700
4. Run Cat5e from Ground Floor to First/Second Floor, configuring a WAP on the end of it, which should put the Third Floor in range
 
Defconluke said:
The longer the wire, the more signal quality will degrade. The electrical wiring could just be too long/old for good signal quality along it's entire length.

I'd recommend a Wireless Range Extender rather than messing around with homeplugs, wires etc.
Click to expand...

I'm reluctant to spend more money. Ideally I would get the current power line adapters working.
Thanks for the reply though mate.
 
bremen1874 said:
If you can run a mains extension lead from socket B to her room (a really bad idea btw) you can presumably run a network cable from there to her room instead? Plug the Powerline adapter into socket B and use a network cable from there.

The Superhub has notoriously bad wireless performance, just getting a really good wireless router could fix the problem but it wouldn't be particularly cheap (£80+).
Click to expand...

I am looking at running an Ethernet cable from the socket on the left.of the ground floor to her room. An Ethernet cable that long is only £8. Plus it should be faster than the speeds she'd get with a wireless router. Thanks though.
 
passey89 said:
run this program to test the lan speed then plz post results

http://www.totusoft.com/lanspeed1.html

With a 200mbps powerline kit its halved as its 100mbps each way.

With my house that was built in 2012, right upstairs above the superdud I managed to get 45 / 50 mbps. If your in an older house / have other electrical appliances on then its going to be lower.

If your LAN speed is comming up as 22mb then its not the powerline its something to do with thr superdud / connection.

try this first and let us know.
Click to expand...

strangely the speed is coming up as 22mb but sometimes the internet works, sometimes it doesn't (it just says 'unknown network').

I ran that program, but didn't know how to export the log file.
here is a photo of the screen after the test:
IMG_20121202_144302.jpg
 
Is an RJ45 CAT5e cable what i need? - i measured the length needed and it came to 21m. So i am thinking i should get a 25m cable and just tuck the excess away somewhere.
There are no big problems of the signal degrading over that length is there?
 
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