Poweline Adapters

smallzz

smallzz

smallzz

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Joined
11 Dec 2009
Posts
190
Location
Gateshead
Hey Guys,

Long time since i been on here but thought i would contact the experts.

I have moved into a new house and started using powerline adapters. Amazing on first uses until the wifi was dying. I try to remote onto the BT hub to look into the issue and notice all of these strange devices. After much trouble shooting it turns out that my adapters are picking up next doors adapters and is routing me through their connection. :S. A bit more investigation turns out that we're equally sharing the connection. I'm not the best with electrical wiring but surely i shouldn't pick up theirs as we should be on different circuits?

The BT hubs aren't any good at personalising the security on them so im a bit stuck until i invest in a new router.

I've googled the issue but unable to find stuff like this. Does anyone else have any experience of this? If so, any ideas on how to fix it?

Thanks,

Smallzz
 
If they're stuck seeing each other then you could make sure you're on different subnets. Your IPs probably start with 192.168.0. If you change it to something like 192.168.2 then you won't be able to route traffic to each other. You will however probably still have issues with DHCP - you might both get IPs from the same router, but at least you'll be sending your data out of the router that gave you the IP address, whichever that is... Unless you use static IPs and disable DHCP on your router. Which is fine for TVs etc, but not so great for devices that leave the house.

You're basically in the same situation you would be in if you just plugged a long cable between your routers. You have 2 DHCP servers on the same network, and that's never a good thing.

Your best bet might be to buy some powerline adapters that don't talk to BT adapters.
 
Yeah I created a different IP address range something like 10.28.x.x but then his devices started getting DHCP from our router.

I think it's stupid in newer versions of these hubs there's no mac address filtering etc.

I also tried static IP address but only for the PC. We don't have anymore than 10 devices that connect to the network so I may just turn off DHCP and give everything a static.
 
Simple Fix.

Use the pairing buttons or the supplied software utility (if there is one) to set your own encryption keys. They then won't connect to other people's networks.

Tell you neighbour to do the same.
 
The pairing buttons don't seem to do much on these I'm afraid. I tried it numerous times and it just seems to pick whichever network is strongest. For the software I'll have a look into it on the website hopefully their will be something.
 
You're probably resetting them to default rather than setting your own keys. The buttons usually cover both tasks so you need to know how long to hold them down and in which order.

The information about setting you own keys it is almost certainly in the instructions, but often not as prominently as it should be. People plug them in and as they work out of the box that's usually it.

With default keys all Powerline adapters will talk to all other Powerline adapters where the owner hasn't bothered to set the security.
 
I'll take a deeper look into it then.

Thanks for the advice!

P.s. if one pair are secured and the other isn't then the unsecured ones should leave mine alone?
 
It's the TP Link PA4010 kit or av600 starter kit. Just read up on the manual that pairing is one second hold and next longest is 8 seconds for leaving the network so I was definitely pairing correct.

There does seem to be software for managing the network so I'll try setting that up and hopefully they will just reject any of their devices trying to route to ours.
 
Tried the above and my PC is still picking up both routers and seeing every device possible. I think this will be a combination of changing the IP address range, static IP and then re-securing the adapters.
 
Only mine. I tried randomising the name and typing my own to no joy.

I I also thought my PC could be getting DHCP from their network before the cables powered up so I got them secure then released the IP and got another. But still the same.
 
Had the same issue with the apartment block I lived in. Everyones power plugs picking up each other, so I just enabled the encryption which sorted it. I have however since thrown them in the bin and put a cable in.
 
How long did the encryption take to work? I was on for about an hour last night setting up and resetting to no avail.
 
It should be quick, plug them in next to each other, hit pairing button on one, power light flashes, hit it on the other, power light flashes, then a minute the power light should go static and they're paired.
 
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