Powerline Adapter

Casterina

Casterina

Casterina

Associate
Joined
17 Nov 2011
Posts
852
I've the HH5 router and looking to buy powerline adapter (single port) for my gaming computer upstairs which TP-Link and Netgear seems to be the most common ones but is there a specific brand or model I should buy?
 
Running a cable is preferable, but assuming both are on the same ring main then it basically comes down to how fast you want that link to be. Remember power line claimed speeds tend to be a combined up/down figure so 200mbit power line is 100mbit each way max. I can comfortably stream h264 BD rips over 200mbit power line plugs, but wiring condition and things like being on a spur from another socket and extension/surge suppression all can reduce maximum bandwidth.
 
Avalon said:
Running a cable is preferable, but assuming both are on the same ring main then it basically comes down to how fast you want that link to be. Remember power line claimed speeds tend to be a combined up/down figure so 200mbit power line is 100mbit each way max. I can comfortably stream h264 BD rips over 200mbit power line plugs, but wiring condition and things like being on a spur from another socket and extension/surge suppression all can reduce maximum bandwidth.
Click to expand...
I live in a semi detached house where all the wall sockets in the house are on the same ring main and I heard that different sockets may give you different speed
 
Picked up a cheap (£50) pair of TPLink adapters with WiFi yesterday after a second router died.
Testing it last night, powerline seemed to work really well (better than my old router) in this old house to clone the WiFi upstairs for streaming video to a tablet.
 
Last edited:
i'm going to be doing the exact same thing pretty soon so i've been looking into it over the last few days, by the sound of it the Solwise 1200AV2 seems like the best performing powerline adapter out there. its a bit on the pricey side tho.
other than that the next best options are the Devolo 1200 triple or the Devolo 650+ triple
speeds are much better than wifi but still not comparable with cat5e
 
Powerline - while generally more stable than wifi - is no substitute for running cable, however it's great for temporary connections, runs where a cable is impractical/not permitted and where you need to add an AP etc. to improve wifi coverage. If you're in a situation where you have a genuine need for greater than 100mbit each way then it's usually better to lay a cable, nothing worse than spending money on an expensive powerline kit and then having issues due to socket wiring/extensions/surge suppression etc. Also you can usually work around powerline's speed limitations with a little planning.

For example I have in the past used powerline as a connection to my router then added a gigabit switch at the other end, all the devices connected to the gigabit switch communicate via it and the WAN connection would be incapable of saturating the powerline connection. In my situation the things that plugged direct to the router were mainly things that wouldn't need gigabit such as games consoles/sky box etc. so I could have run really low end powerline kit and not noticed the difference (WAN was 38mbit).
 
What's the best powerline adapter brand? I have looked at TP-Link but they seem to have some problems with disconnecting as it goes into standby even when you are using the internet, anyone used Devolo 550 or 650 adapters?
 
Was using D-Link power through adapters for years before moving house and running cable.

Was literally PuP from the word go and never gave me a problem, more reliable then WiFi but no replacement for network cable.
 
I used Zyxel 600Mbps AV2 MIMO power adapters and they are perfectly fine for me. I play a lot of online games and I get the full 100Mb Virgin connection speed no problem.

It all depends on the quality of your wiring .... you also should not put the adapters in the same wall sockets directly attached to mega power hungry appliances such as washing machines and fridges.

If you intend to transfer large files across the network through powerline adapters then you may struggle with throughput though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom